WHEN THERE WAS DOUBLE-DIGIT INFLATION.

WHEN THERE WAS DOUBLE-DIGIT INFLATION. Robert Samuelson had an article in the Washington Post (February 11) arguing that the Reagan celebrations occasioned by his 100th birthday are mostly misleading because: “They omit Reagan’s singular domestic achievement and the wellspring of his popularity: the defeat of double-digit inflation.” I also have not encountered much mention of Reagan’s role in ending that double-digit inflation. As Samuelson says, Reagan’s main role was in supporting the tight-money policy of Paul Volcker, the head of the Federal Reserve. Kids, I was there at the time, and there had been tremendous pressure by influential legislators to have an extremely loose monetary policy. The criticism took the form of protesting against the high interest rates that the Fed was imposing. The critics did not recognize the fact that these rates were nominal interest rates. A nominal interest rate of 13% seems daunting, but if the inflation rate is 13%, the real interest rate that the borrower is paying is 0.