Edward Sonnino

I googled paul volcker on cost-push inflation. First three results:

1. Paul Volcker took dramatic steps to reign in inflation.

2. Arthur Burns broke it; Paul Volcker fixed it.

3. It's not true that Volcker whipped inflation! by Edward Sonnino.

Wait! What?? 

An excerpt from Sonnino:

The logic behind the belief that Volcker’s extremely tight money brought down the high inflation of the early 1980’s rests on the flawed assumption that there is only one strain of inflation, “demand-pull inflation”. But there is a second, distinct variety of inflation, i.e., “cost-push inflation”, having completely different causes and requiring completely different economic policy responses. “Demand-pull” inflation, the most common variety of inflation, is due to excess aggregate demand, the situation of “too much money chasing too few goods”, corresponding to a booming economy with high capacity utilization and low unemployment. “Cost-push” inflation, a historically rare variety of inflation, is instead due to increased costs of production and distribution having nothing to do with excess aggregate demand. Those increased costs are transmitted by companies to consumer prices in an attempt to protect shrinking profit margins, even when such price increases result in fewer sales.

That's the second paragraph, and it is exactly right. Exactly right, except cost-push inflation is more common than Edward Sonnino says, and demand-pull (with its "booming economy with high capacity utilization and low unemployment") is less common.

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See also the Anna Schwartz quote in mine of 31 October 2009. 

And by the way, the CPI for October 2009 was 216.509. For September 2020, 260.209. That's a 20% increase in the price level.