Hi. I'm Carl Tannenbaum, Chief Economist for Northern Trust. England exported some notable things to the United States in the 1960s. The British Invasion filled the airwaves with songs by the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling Stones, and other bands. Swinging London styles shaped American fashion tastes. 

A more esoteric British export from that era was the term stagflation. The portmanteau of stagnation and inflation was first coined by a member of Parliament in 1965, before making its way across the Atlantic. The term became an apt descriptor of the American economy during the 1970s, when sluggish growth and rising prices produced a toxic combination. 

Recently, commentators have been using the word stagflation to describe what might lie ahead for the global economy. The size and scale of tariffs that countries are aiming at one another will depress economic activity and place upward pressure on prices, an unwelcome combination. Tariffs act like a tax, paid largely by households. They depress consumption and business investment. 

Tariffs add to inflation by raising the cost of imported goods. Domestic producers and sectors affected by tariffs often increase their prices as well. The magnitudes of these impacts depend on many things, including the presence of substitutes for imported goods and the ability of households to defer purchases. 

For tariffs as widely ranging as those proposed so far this year, the modeling can be very complex. But several sources have concluded that the advancing trade war will depress economic growth and raise inflation across markets. This creates challenges for central banks, which share a mandate to contain inflation. 

In the United States, the Federal Reserve also seeks full employment. When forces are pushing downward on growth and upward on the price level, it can be very difficult to set monetary policy properly. The uncertainty surrounding the tariffs doesn't make the task any easier. 

The US administration is hoping that its trade strategy will lead to a reorienting of global commerce that will ultimately enhance American growth. But to achieve this outcome, global supply chains that have become deeply ingrained over recent decades will have to be unwound. Some costs will have to be paid. 

By the early 1980s, the combination of inflation and unemployment, known as the misery index, exceeded 20%. Today's misery index is only about 7%. So increases from here would have to be called mini stagflation. But even a little bit of additional misery is something that we shouldn't welcome or export. And that's "The View from Here."