Commentary With inflation in the headlines, a look back at the last experience might offer needed perspective. There is no claim here that history repeats exactly. Rather a look back offers ways to dispel nonsense and identify what is important. The Arab oil embargo of 1973 dominates most references to the last great inflation. No doubt oil played a role, but problems appeared long before the embargo. Inflation began to build in the second half of the 1960s. After years of barely any inflation, consumer prices by 1966 were rising at a 3.5 percent annual rate and then built on themselves so that by 1969 they were rising at a 6.0 percent rate. This initial price pressure had two clear roots. One was the strain President Lyndon Johnson had placed on the federal budget and the economy by simultaneously pursuing a war in Vietnam and a domestic war on poverty. …
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