If you're bearish on U.S. inflation, I think your view boils down to one ofthe following arguments:

1. I think growth will remain soft, or we might even slip into another (global?) recession. You can't have inflation without too-rapid growth, so inflation isn't going to happen.

2. I think inflation expectations are well-anchored, and actual inflation only happens if people start expecting inflation and so adjust their demands for wages and/or prices.

3. I perceive that wage growth is weak, and so there is no 'cost-push' inflation.

4. Although money supply has been growing at a 7-10% pace for the last couple of years, money velocity has been declining. It is likely to continue to decline while banks and sovereigns are under structural pressure to de-leverage.

5. I trust the Fed to tighten in time. I'm not sure what 'in time' means, but I figure they know what they're doing.

6. I think the whole darn thing is going to collapse.

You are entitled to hold any of those views, of course.

If #5 represents your view, I can't help you. If #6 is your view, then there's not much that can be done anyway. If #1 is your view, I won't bore you with a recitation of the arguments I've presented before that suggest growth and inflation are correlated only spuriously and that the proposition that growth is the dominant consideration when forecasting inflation can be considered refuted (for example here, here, and here). #3 is more defensible, in my mind, since the evidence on leads/lags of wages versus prices is not conclusive although it seems to me that wages tend to follow prices, rather than lead them (there are some clear examples of wages following prices, and there are some times that they appear to move simultaneously, but I am not aware of any clear examples of prices following wages). #2 is not disprovable, since we don't have a way to measure inflation expectations directly that is very useful (see here for a thorough discussion, and here for a shorter discussion). Therefore, while it may turn out to be true, I think this boils down to a question of faith, like #5.

So, to my mind, the most plausible argument that inflation is not going to be a concern - despite the fact that monetary policy stimulus is being applied around the globe to an unprecedented degree - is the supposition that money velocity is going to continue to slide for structural reasons for a long time. While U.S. banks have been growing commercial bank credit again at pre-crisis rates for the last year or so (see Chart below, source Fed Board of Governors), this may partially reflect a gain in lending market share versus European banks because the latter have been under severe pressure for the last year.

Global inflation ought to depend on global velocity as much as global money supply, which led me to write backin August that

If you want to make a case for slowing U.S. inflation, I do not believe you can look to the U.S., but rather must look to Europe. If domestic lending (and hence velocity) is rising partly because European lending (and velocity) is contracting, then some of the inflation potential is being sucked out, at least temporarily, by financial and credit strains in Europe.

In my view, the only plausible way we get appreciably lower inflation is if central banks abruptly stop quantitative easing (I don't think there's any measurable chance that they tighten) and the velocity of money in Europe (and Japan) drops faster than the velocity of money in the U.S. rises.

The reason I bring this up now is that one of the 'negative tail' outcomes became significantly less plausible yesterday after the Basel liquidity rules were delayed (for four years) and softened (by changing the definition ofwhat assets are 'liquid').

Regardless of whether or not that increases the vulnerability of the banking system to another credit crisis (it surely does), it lowers the banks' cost of funding a loan and thus, all else being equal (which it surely is not), should lead to a greater loan volume at any interest rate. In my view, this significantly reduces the likelihood that money velocity in Europe will collapse further (at least for a while) as banks hoard capital, and thus removes asI said one of the 'negative tail' outcomes from the list of active concerns.

Breakevens responded positively to this news, as did the equities of European bank stocks, especially ones such as Natixis and Commerzbank which have been under pressure for a long time. Commodities also rose, for a change: this year, commodities have had an awful start to the year despite the roaring of equities out of the gate. The chart below (source: Bloomberg) shows that the ratio of the S&P to the DJ-UBS index has now exceeded the highest relative valuation of the last year, and indeed the highest relative valuation of the last tenyears.

By now, my suggestion should not be surprising - commodity indices are the place to position for a bad inflation event. A continuation of low and stable inflation in conjunction with a generous financing environment (if, for example, core inflation retreats gently to 1.75% or so even though central bankers continue to ease) will push this relationship further in the direction it has recently headed. The market is pricing in just such an outcome. An adverse outcome will likely cause a reversal of this relationship, implying a great outperformance of commodities relative to equities over the ensuing several years.

It's anybody's guess when and if that will happen, but as noted above I think one argument for the long-stocks/short-commodities trade has just receded.