Why The Next Decade Will Be Hard: Part 1

The Supply Side Is Back

This is part 1 in our 2 parter on why the next decade will be hard, part 2 is here.

The world hasn’t been so nice for almost 20 years now. This isn’t me needlessly complaining (although I do enjoy doing so), and it isn’t me talking about all of the death and destruction in the world. In fact, despite a recent uptick, the world is in a period of unprecedented peace with deaths in conflict per capita still well below historic lows.

It also isn’t me talking about the newly fractious state of politics and it isn’t me talking about broken public services or the crumbling world order or the rise of China or any of that.

I’m an economist so it is something much more boring. The world isn’t NICE anymore, or to spell it out, the world isn’t in Non-Inflationary Consistent Expansion.

This was the phrase coined by BoE Governor Mervyn King to describe the glory of the 1990s and early 2000s. In King’s words, the NICE period really did sound quite nice given “growth was a little above trend, unemploymen…