Dear John: While, of course, we should celebrate the life of the late public servant Paul Volcker [who died Dec. 8], I am having a very hard time understanding the media’s false viewpoint that he broke the back on inflation.

In my view, during the time I was an economics major in college, there was and now is much evidence to show that it was (at the time, radical) “supply side” fiscal policies that lowered inflation much more.

In short, the 1981 Kemp-Roth Tax Cut created “investment spending” incentives, like depreciation and tax credits, that allowed supply to grow and thus modify prices while allowing demand to continue to increase.

Volcker had no choice but to make rates go up. It was not an option. The supply-side tax cut changed domestic spending and inflation.

Professor Anthony Rivieccio, MBA PFA

Dear Professor: Thanks for your view.

All I know is this: I was buying a house at the time F was raising interest rates almost weekly. I believe my mortgage was 12 percent, and it was going to go up to 15 percent if my wife and I had waited another day.

Those rates absolutely caused me to reduce my spending on other things. And when you put all the people together who were affected by this, prices had to decline.

Ah, the good ol’ days. I don’t remember how many times I refinanced that loan as rates came down.

Thanks for writing.