A column by Paul Krugman criticizes a New York Sun editorial. It's nice to see the New York Sun setting the agenda of the Nobel laureate New York Times columnist, but the Times column has some significant problems. For one thing, it accuses the Sun of "sexism" and "raw mysogyny" when it was the Times itself that, before the Sun did, raised in a front-page news article the issue of Janet Yellin's gender. But the more substantive issue seems to be what Professor Krugman writes when he says the Sun editorial "took it for granted that the Fed has been following disastrously inflationary monetary policies for years, even though actual inflation is at a 50-year low....The people shouting that the Fed is 'debasing the dollar' have been warning of runaway inflation any day now for almost five years, and they have been wrong every step of the way."
The Bloomberg News article to which Professor Krugman links for his claim about inflation at a 50-year-low notes that the measure being used "excludes food and fuel." Professor Krugman may survive on the sustenance of his own brilliant intellect, and he may not have to heat his home during those harsh Princeton winters because he has the ability to resort to his sun-drenched Caribbean hideaway. But for the rest of us mortals for whom food and fuel are expenses that can't be assumed away, the inflation picture isn't quite so rosy as Professor Krugman claims. The government's own statistics for inflation (which may understate it) that do include food and fuel are here. They measured it as 3.2% in 2011 and 2.1% in 2012. The list of years that were lower than 2.1% include 2002, 1998, 1986, 1959 to 1965, and 1952 to 1956.