I remember a popular sticker in Germany during the 1970s, designed to ridicule the opponents of atomic energy. It read: “Nuclear power? No thanks! We get electricity from our power sockets.”

Our current debate on inflation sometimes reminds me of this absurd statement. When someone says inflation is caused by higher oil prices, he or she might as well say that electricity comes out of the socket. Since inflation measures the changes of weighted prices in a basket of goods and services, there is always one price that rises the fastest. But this is of course not the cause of inflation. We want to know what causes those prices to rise.