Paul Volcker's Recollection of the History of Inflation is a Bit Weak

Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker lectured readers on the dangers of inflation in a NYT column today. He warned that a little bit of inflation invariably grows to a lot of inflation, which then carries a huge cost to contain.

Actually this has not in general proven to be the case. The one time in the post-war period where inflation clearly became excessive in the United States was in the 70s. This was due to a number of extraordinary events, including large oil price...