Structural inflation roots in decades of deregulation, tax cuts, and pandemic supply chain collapse—Trump era policies are symptoms, not causes

The 1970s stagflation crisis (oil shocks + Nixon’s wage/price controls) and the 2008 financial collapse (deregulation + subprime mortgages) share structural parallels with today’s inflation: elite capture of policy, financialization of the economy, and supply chain vulnerabilities. The Reagan-era tax cuts (1981) and Trump’s (2017) both prioritized corporate giveaways over public investment, creating the conditions for asset-price inflation while wages stagnated. Economist Michael Hudson’s work on ‘financialization’ shows how debt-fueled growth distorts real economies—a pattern repeated across eras.