The Covid-19 recession technically ended in April 2020. At two months, it was one of the shortest economic recessions in history. Since then, however, some economists and market practitioners have been screaming from the hilltops about the risk of inflation. That’s because the US Government injected trillions of fiscal and monetary stimulus into the economy - the highest levels in history - and the US Government and governments around the world are still at it. All this spending was against the backdrop of staggering changes in our economy.
Are there bright red flashing warning signs of inflation right now? If so, were the inflationary trends already in place prior to the pandemic? Or did the covid response policies of governments here and abroad accelerate them? And how do we unwind an inflationary cycle before it’s too late?
Today we have the ideal guest to help us understand what we are dealing with. Dr Mohamed El-Erian is President of Queens' College, Cambridge University. He serves as part-time Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz and Chair of Gramercy Fund Management. He’s a Professor at The Wharton School, he is a Financial Times contributing editor, Bloomberg Opinion columnist, and the author of two New York Times best sellers. He serves on several non-profit boards, including the NBER, and those of Barclays and Under Armour.
From 2007-2014, Mohammed served as CEO/co-CIO of PIMCO, which has over two trillion dollars under management. He worked at PIMCO for a total of fourteen years, and was chair of President Obama's Global Development Council.
He also served two years as president and CEO of Harvard Management Company, the entity that manages Harvard’s endowment. He has been chair of the Microsoft Investment Advisory Board since 2007.
He holds a master's degree and doctorate (economics) from Oxford and received his bachelor and master degrees from Cambridge University.
Mohammed is expert in a lot of things when it comes to the financial markets and the macro economy, especially inflation. So he’s going to help us make sense of the madness. Is this inflation transitory or is it here to stay for a while, and if so, what should we do about it?
