Arthur Laffer certainly missed the current economic mess -- he famously offered to bet permabear Peter Schiff "a penny" that the real estate bubble would not go bust. Laffer argued that a "nice slowdown" was the worst we could get.

You might think he would be discredited and would crawl back into his cave, but you'd be wrong. Like any good pundit, he's back with more prediction, this time in an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal. Now he appears to be joining Mr. Schiff in predicting serious inflation. He writes:

But as bad as the fiscal picture is, panic-driven monetary policies portend to have even more dire consequences. We can expect rapidly rising prices and much, much higher interest rates over the next four or five years, and a concomitant deleterious impact on output and employment not unlike the late 1970s.

So there you have it: The ultimate trickle down, supply side, monetary policy works economist is now predicting inflationary doom. This time though, his arguments seem to make sense -- and investors might do well to position themselves for rising asset prices and a declining dollar.

Laffer explains how monetary policy could be used to squelch inflationary pressures, but says that it's doubtful that that will happen.

It's tempting to dismiss Laffer as someone who simply sells the flavor of the month: When the economy was good he was bullish. Now it's bad and he's bearish. But however you feel about his policies, he's a pretty smart guy, and his thoughts on the future of the dollar are worth considering.