THAT '70s FEELING

Trump's tariffs could cause stagflation for the first time in decades. It may go on for a long, long time.

- DAVID FRUM

I remember the little stickers on restaurant menus.

In the 1970s, it cost much more to print a menu than it does today. Restaurants did not change them often. When prices rose, they'd retain their old menu—but affix little stickers with the new, handwritten prices atop the previous ones. When prices rose especially rapidly, the stickers accumulated in stubby columns rising up from the menu. A bored child might scratch off all the stickers with a fingernail—and, like a young archaeologist, reveal a lost world.

The term that came into use to describe the era was stagflation: stagnation plus inflation. Until recently, it seemed a relic of the disco era, but the economic chaos of Donald Trump’s second presidency has resurfaced the old word. Stock markets are warning of a recession. Bond markets are anticipating inflation. Perhaps one market is wrong, or the other, or both. More likely, they portend the return of a half-forgotten nightmare.

From 1969 to 1982—just 13 years—the United States suffered four recessions. Three were severe. Two were both severe and protracted. Recoveries were comparatively feeble. Even during the recessions, prices kept rising.

The era’s economic turmoil unnerved Americans. Mass-market best sellers such as The Late Great Planet Earth prophesied the imminent end of the world in a biblical apocalypse. Americans absorbed a secular version of the end-of-the-world obsession from books such as The Limits to Growth, which claimed that humankind was overconsuming almost every natural resource and had no choice but to strictly ration the pitiful remains.