Financial Times: Stimulus Needed

The wild-eyed socialists at the Financial Times call for additional currency debasement:

The confluence of stagnation and above-target inflation cuts against the desire of policymakers to start normalising monetary policy after a long period of unusual looseness. In recent months, both the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve have become more vocal in their desire to raise rates. This temptation must be resisted. The west's inflation problem stems from the voracious demand from Asia's new industrial powerhouses. This must give hope that a mild dose of stagflation is simply the temporary symptom of an inevitable economic shift. Squeezing domestic inflation to offset it would be counter-productive. In abnormal times, policymakers should also be alive to the balance of risk between inflation and unemployment. Letting the latter rise and become entrenched at a time of weakness would risk hardening the economic arteries further.

If India improves its public policy, then Indian people will get richer. And if Indian people get richer, more people will buy cars and motorbikes. That will increase global demand for oil, without necessarily leading to any technological advances in the oil drilling sector. That, in turn, will lead to an increase in gasoline prices not only in India but also in the United States and Portugal. But strangling economic growth in the United States and Portugal doesn't turn those car-owning Indians back into penniless subsistence farmers.