At the beginning of a decade it is tempting to look ahead for the next ten years. - Lawrence Klein

The centrally planned economies, dissatisfied with the outcome of their own efforts to achieve good economic growth performance, have changed strategy and decided to import high technology from the West. as well as necessary grains to supplement their domestic agicultural supplies. This new approach has opened their economies to Western inflation because imports have been reflecting rising world price. Gold and oil sales at correspondingly rising prices have been used by the Soviet Union to finance part of their import needs. but they are fully enmeshed in world inflation accounting in balancing rising export prices.

People say monetary policy is easy and quick to implement. It can even be done overnight on the telephone, they say fiscal policy drags out in political and congressional debate in our country. It might take months to implement. But the point is that once fiscal policy is implemented, it might go to work much faster than monetary policy.

The centrally planned economics used to consider themselves well insulated against the economic ills of the rest of the world. This is no longer the case.