Year-on-year CPI headline inflation is expected to be lower as of a year from now, ranging from 4.2% to 6.8%.
Figure 1: CPI inflation year-on-year (black), median expected from Survey of Professional Forecasters (blue +), median expected from Michigan Survey of Consumers (red), median from NY Fed Survey of Consumer Expectations (light green), forecast from Cleveland Fed (pink), mean from Coibion-Gorodnichenko firm expectations survey [light blue squares]. Source: BLS, University of Michigan via FRED and Investing.com, Reuters, Philadelphia Fed Survey of Professional Forecasters, NY Fed, Cleveland Fed and Coibion and Gorodnichenko.
Note that while professional forecasters’ (mean) forecasts are typically exhibit less bias and lower RMSFE, they have not done so over the last year and a half (post). More on forecasts and encompassing here. Lots of detail on firm/household inflation expectations from Weber, D’Acunto, Gorodnichenko and Coibion in a recent paper.
Off topic and I do not condone violence but watch this tape of how someone tapped RUDY on the back as you read this melodramatic account from poor little RUDY
https://www.businessinsider.com/rudy-giuliani-account-of-supermarket-assault-differs-from-video-footage-2022-6
Footage has emerged of what former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani called an attack that could have resulted in him falling, cracking his skull, and dying. Giuliani was at a ShopRite grocery store on Staten Island when he claimed to have been assaulted by a man. Giuliani had been out campaigning for his son Andrew, who is running as a GOP candidate in the race for the New York governorship. Giuliani later called a radio show hosted by former New York mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa to talk about the incident. The former mayor said that he had just exited the store’s men’s room and was caught up with a group of people who were “hugging” and “kissing” him when the assault occurred. “I feel a shot on my back like somebody shot me. I went forward, but luckily I didn’t fall down,” Giuliani said.
RUDY is one little baby. BTW RUDY and his boy have advocated their MAGA hat wearing morons of downright domestic terrorism. This slap on the back was not even close.
An update:
https://theblast.com/267073/rudy-giuliani-attacker-misdemeanor/
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is not happy that the charges against a ShopRite employee have been downgraded to a misdemeanor. On Sunday, the New York Post reported that an “on-duty” ShopRite employee in Staten Island “attacked” Donald Trump’s former lawyer in an unprovoked assault. On Monday morning, law enforcement officers told TMZ that his assault claims are “much ado about nothing it seems.” “It was a pat,” they added. “This whole thing is a stretch.” However, it seems that the employee is still being charged, as Deadline reported on Monday that his charges had been downgraded to misdemeanor charges, instead of the felony charges Giuliani insisted upon, given that he is over 65 years old.
It was clearly just a pat as we have seen the tape of the minor little dustup. But RUDY wants this man executed for a minor little pat on the back. Of course if one of Rudy’s rabid racists murdered a black man – Trump would give the killer a position in government. MAGA
Samuel L. Jackson calls out Justice Thomas for not putting Loving on the chopping block:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/samuel-l-jackson-calls-out-clarence-thomas-for-leaving-interracial-marriage-off-list-of-targets/ar-AAYTknq?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=79dcfa820b434b8588992d305490fe0e
Of course we all know Clarence Thomas is married to a white woman – who just happens to be as right wing as he is. Look – states should not be allowed to ban interracial marriages. But then states should not be allowed to ban any couple who wishes to get married.
How insane has Clarence Thomas gone?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/clarence-thomas-signals-interest-in-making-it-easier-to-sue-media/ar-AAYUfys?ocid=anaheim-ntp-feeds&pc=U531&cvid=7e6858e3fc394cb5bcf930ca582a48e7
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday expressed a desire to revisit a landmark 1964 ruling that makes it relatively difficult to bring successful lawsuits against media outlets for defamation. Thomas’s statement came in response to the court’s decision to turn away an appeal from a Christian nonprofit group who disputed their characterization by the civil rights watchdog group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Coral Ridge Ministries Media sued the SPLC for defamation for listing them as a hate group on their public database, which led to Amazon excluding Coral Ridge as a recipient of charitable contributions from online shoppers. Thomas dissented from the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the lawsuit, which had been dismissed by lower courts for failing to overcome the decades-old legal standard, established in the landmark 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision, that public figures who sue for defamation must not only prove defendants made defamatory statements, but that those statements were made with “actual malice.” “This case is one of many showing how New York Times and its progeny have allowed media organizations and interest groups ‘to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity,’” Thomas wrote.
Southern Poverty Law Center is not a dishonest organization. But of course Faux News is. Thomas’s “reasoning” is misplaced in this particular case but suing Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Fox & Friends, and their ilk strikes me a grand idea!
Yes talk about collateral benefits.
Thomas never was recognized for his legal thinking – but talk about dumb as a rock. Also extremely self-centered. His wife has been under attack lately and I am sure he think some of that was defamation.
However, if we could gain a foothold for suing Faux news I would help pay some of the cost for the few liberal organizations that would be caught in the net.
How corrupt can Donald Trump get?
https://apnews.com/article/technology-social-media-donald-trump-4853286c793565badd5fb0381e5192fa
NEW YORK (AP) — The company planning to buy Donald Trump’s new social media business has disclosed a federal grand jury investigation that it says could impede or even prevent its acquisition of the Truth Social app. Shares of Digital World Acquisition Corp. dropped 10% in morning trading Monday as the company revealed that it has received subpoenas from a grand jury in New York. The Justice Department subpoenas follow an ongoing probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission into whether Digital World broke rules by having substantial talks about buying Trump’s company starting early last year before Digital World sold stock to the public for the first time in September, just weeks before its announcement that it would be buying Trump’s company.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DWACU
Digital World Acquisition share price has dropped by over 70% since early this year. Anyone who does business with Trump gets burned badly.
Bayer AG wanted the Supremes to shield them from lawsuits involving the damage RoundUp may do:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/us-supreme-court-again-nixes-bayer-challenge-to-weedkiller-suits/ar-AAYV0jJ?ocid=uxbndlbing
(Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected another Bayer AG bid to dismiss litigation alleging that its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer as the German pharmaceutical and chemical giant tries to avoid potentially billions of dollars in damages. The justices turned away a Bayer appeal and left in place a lower court decision upholding an $87 million judgment awarded in a lawsuit in California to Alberta and Alva Pilliod, who were diagnosed with cancer after spraying Roundup for more than three decades. The Supreme Court on June 21 rejected a Bayer appeal in a different Roundup case. Bayer has argued that the cancer claims over Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate go against sound science and product clearance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Bayer’s appeal in the Pilliod case raised an additional challenge, arguing that it would violate the U.S. Constitution’s due process protections to award punitive damages that far outweigh compensatory damages.
Bayer made a lot of money on RoundUp. It can afford to pay these damages but of course Bayer would rather pay their fat cat lawyers to block legitimate law suits.
Well, technically Monsanto made a lot of money on RoundUp which it invented over 50 years ago. Bayer bought up Monsanto in 2018. But it’s true that when you buy the assets, you buy the liabilities as well.
This case is rather unfortunate. Glyphosate (RoundUp) is probably one of the most benign herbicides, less toxic and rapidly decomposing, especially compared to common chlorinated hydrocarbon herbicides like 2-4-D, a component of Agent Orange. Glyphosate’s carcinogenicity is widely debated, and the absence of strong evidence suggests it probably isn’t very dangerous.
Yep – it was Monsanto before being sold to Bayer. I’m no expert on the scientific issues. I’ll leave that to the courts.
“I’m no expert on the scientific issues. I’ll leave that to the courts.”
Shirley you jest.
Anyone, especially children, who spends any amount of time outdoors in the Sierra foothills has been exposed to RoundUp. If you own acreage, you’ve definitely used it. Your children and your pets are likely victims and spreaders of poison oak.
Given the amounts I’ve sprayed over the past 40 years, I should be under a few poison oak bushes by now.
https://english.news.cn/20220627/b3fab96055af4b0aa6ad32aafe95690a/c.html
June 27, 2022
China’s per capita share of grain at 483 kg
BEIJING — China’s per capita share of grain reached 483 kg in 2021, higher than the internationally recognized security line of 400 kg, the country’s agriculture official said Monday.
China’s grain output has exceeded 650 billion kg for seven consecutive years, achieving basic self-sufficiency in grain and absolute security in staple food, Deng Xiaogang, vice minister of Agricultural and Rural Affairs, said at a press conference.
Over the past decade, China has seen significant improvements in its agricultural infrastructure and ensured its farmland area remains above the redline of 1.8 billion mu (about 120 million hectares).
Accumulatively a total of 900 million mu of high-standard farmland had been fostered.
In 2022, China aims to develop 6.67 million hectares of high-standard farmland, promote national projects on black soil protection, and launch the third nationwide soil condition census.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EQRq
January 30, 2018
Consumer Prices for China, India, Brazil and South Africa, 2017-2022
(Percent change)
China’s population is suffering increased incidents of psychological stres as a result of arbitrary, oppressive Covid lockdown enforcement:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3182775/human-cost-chinas-zero-covid-policy-measured-stress-anxiety?module=lead_hero_story&pgtype=homepage
Beijing residents are reportedly in a quiet uproar over news that current policies may be extended for 5 years. “Five years” is, of course, just a way of making a policy semi-perminent. The new yinnin China is “runxue” which is the study of how to run away. Lots of Chinese want to live anywhere but China:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/15/china-pandemic-zero-covid-migration-runxue/
It has been one of the biggest weaknesses of authoritarian regimes that the most creative and productive citizens just don’t want to live there. This country used to be incredibly adept at exploiting this brain drain. I will dare to claim it as the main factor in the success of the US. Now other countries have become much better at this game and I dare say we may end up suffering our own brain drain problem, as we have become much less desirable as a place for creative people to seek a home base for their creativeness.
China’s enslavement of Uighurs IA back in he spotlight, as the U.S. ban on imports of cotton tended by enslaved Uighurs goes into effect:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/21/us-ban-on-cotton-from-forced-uyghur-labour-comes-into-force
Blood Cotton? China exports blood cotton. Has a sick ring to it.
I miss RBG. Her comments on a woman’s right to choose back in 1993:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ruth-bader-ginsburg-s-abortion-comments-during-1993-confirmation-go-viral/ar-AAYVcGz?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=97d4520024094860ba9a8ff258bb77ca
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the finest member of the Supreme Court ever!
Back in May, the Economic Policy Institute wrote this on the negative economic impact of ending Roe:
https://www.epi.org/blog/abortion-rights/
I checked with FRED. The labor force participation rate for women was below 44% before Roe. It rose after Roe reaching almost 60%.
Holy cow, 12 comments without a single one on the post. Yikes!
As it is, I note the range here seems to be between 4.2% and 6.6% for a year from now. I do not have the magic model, and I do not know what is going to happen with the various exogenous shockers out there (crude oil up today). But this looks more likely than Steven Kopits’s 8-12% I guess it was.
But didn’t you know – Stevie is the world’s best forecaster and these professionals are clueless! But wait – oil prices and fertilizer prices have started to decline!
Exactly. We have had a bout of inflation. Most of it due to two direct causes – 1. supply chain foulups and 2. oil prices rising mostly due to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Unless I miss my mark, the supply chain foulups are ongoing but on the way to being sorted out. I don’t seen oil prices staying as high as they are for all that much longer. The Russia-Ukraine war won’t be over any time soon, but I don’t see oil prices staying up.
We may have a bout of post-war inflation after the Russia-Ukraine war is over and maybe a recession then. For now, Uncle Sam is buying a boatload of stuff to send to Ukraine, and that’s a stimulus to the economy of sorts. I will leave it to others to say how effective or efficient it is.
Barkley Rosser Yep. Steven Kopits’ 8-12% number seems implausible on its face. We’ve already experienced the shock part of the exogenous shocks and now businesses are finding ways to work around those shocks. So unless there’s another surprise shock out there, it’s hard to see how we get to something greater than 8% a year from now. Of course, there might be another unexpected shock; e.g., Russia invading Lithuania over Kaliningrad or massive crop failures in the wheat, corn and soybean belts of this country. Just a quick back-of-the-envelope sanity check model might be useful here. Currently inflation is around 8%. The Fed’s inflation target accounts for about 2 percentage points off that figure, leaving us with 6 unexplained percentage points. The three major factors driving inflation are COVID hangover, excess fiscal stimulus and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. When in doubt it’s always a good idea to give each one equal weight of 2 percentage points. Fiscal stimulus will fade a year from now, which should bring inflation down to 6 percent. If new vaccines are highly effective against omicron, then we could knock another 2 percentage points off that, leaving us with the (probably) ongoing war in Ukraine and its effects of energy & food prices. Not a sophisticated analysis, but probably not a bad way to guide one’s thinking given a high level of uncertainty.
“Not a sophisticated analysis, but probably not a bad way to guide one’s thinking given a high level of uncertainty.”
You are too humble. Your thoughts certainly trump Princeton Steve’s little model – an outdated and discredited abuse of the Quantity Theory of Money!
I’ll take your analysis and put down the magic dowsing rod. My take on the COVID hangover is that it’s pretty much the same as the supply chain foulups I mentioned.
One thing we haven’t talked much about is labor quantity and quality. Shortages of available labor will also cause inflation and supply chain foulups. My analysis is less sophisticated than your analysis.
Some good news from The Progressive Farmer (gotta love that name):
https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/crops/article/2022/06/08/fertilizer-prices-move-lower-first
Fertilizer prices which have been soaring are actually falling a bit of late!
The forecasters are actually as good at it as anybody could reasonably expect. Their forecasts are based only on any presumption that could be expected, not the things that were unpredictable. COVID and its effects on supply chains could not possibly have been predicted a year (or even a month) before the pandemic began. So we got a huge increase in observed vs. expected inflation a year before. Same with Russias invasion of Ukraine. That added supply problems upon supply problems but could not be predicted a year or even a month before it happened.