An economist predicted 1970s stagflation years before it happened — and was right
In his 1967 presidential address to the American Economic Association, Milton Friedman argued that pushing unemployment below its 'natural rate' by printing money wouldn't lower it for long, it would just drive inflation higher while unemployment crept back up. Edmund Phelps reached a similar conclusion independently. Both were largely ignored until the 1970s delivered exactly that outcome: rising inflation and unemployment together, a combination the Phillips Curve said shouldn't exist.