Inflation has been the defining theme of both the domestic and the global economy since mid-2021. War in Eastern Europe has overshadowed it. At the same time, the Russia-Ukraine conflict will only exacerbate upward pressure on producer and consumer prices. So the story goes. In part two of his conversation with Mike Green, chief strategist at Simplify Asset Management, Warren Mosler, perhaps the first articulator of Modern Monetary Theory, offers an alternative explanation for what drives and is driving inflation. Mosler notes that the Consumer Price Index is a politically constructed measure and that sustained inflation is primarily a function of government exercising its fiscal and monetary power. Efforts by the Federal Reserve to combat it therefore amount to an intramural struggle, distorting the market and boosting volatility. Amid geopolitically driven commodity-price spikes, Mosler also addresses the monopoly-like pricing power of oil producers. That power is light, however, compared to the state’s currency monopoly. So, the question becomes, how high will the state allow energy prices to soar before we hit a hard stop? Read Mosler’s “Framework for the Analysis of the Price Level and Inflation” here: https://rvtv.io/363Qjwm. To explore more of his work visit www.moslereconomics.com. Recorded on March 9, 2022.