Rosenberg: Inflation Is Coming

Once a major worry amid the Federal Reserve’s massive quantitative easing program, inflation seems to have taken a back seat in investors’ minds. But top economist David Rosenberg says not to forget about it.

“This deflation, disinflation, benign inflation story which seems to be everybody’s mindset is really yesterday’s story,” Rosenberg tells BusinessWeek. The Federal Reserve “is carrying out the mother of all reflationary policies,” he says. “My bet is that eventually the Fed will get what it wants, and then some.”

Rosenberg thinks U.S. wages and rents will rise as the job and housing markets rebound and the Fed’s stimulus continues. Bonds aren’t safe, he says. “The next decade is going to look more like the ’70s than many think,” Rosenberg wrote in a December note. He thinks the U.S. may avoid double-digit inflation, but that it may get close to 5 percent. He thinks wages, rents, and the velocity of money are “going to be rising significantly over the course of the next several quarters.”