EJ Antoni/Heritage presents this picture which should scare the beejeebus out of us.
Source: EJ Antoni/X.
I can imagine Secretary Yellen trying to “strongarm” Russians trying to evade sanctions. I can imagine Secretary Yellen strongarming tax evaders. I must confess I can’t imagine Yellen “strongarming” Jerome Powell. I’d like to know where Dr. Antoni has received information in this regard.
In any case, I thought the picture was a bit off, so I maximized the correlation, so as to replicate the peaks and troughs of inflation. The magic number was 47.5 years.
Figure 1: Year-on-Year CPI inflation (blue), and lagged 47.5 years (tan), both in %. Source: BLS via FRED, author’s calculations.
This seems to suggest that inflation reared its ugly head again in 1979 because of a premature loosening of monetary policy. While this might’ve contributed to accelerating inflation in 1979, I suspect one might want to take into account commodity price shocks in 1978 and 1979, the largest of which was oil…
Figure 1: Year-on-Year growth in oil prices (WTI) (blue), and lagged 47.5 years (tan), both in %. Source: EIA via FRED, author’s calculations.
So, sure, if one expects oil prices to jump 160%or so in 2027, then expect another surge in CPI inflation…(although as Blanchard and Gali (2009) have noted, the sensitivity of output and inflation to oil shocks is less pronounced than in the 1970s and 1980s).
I saw this Twitter with the claim it was presented without comment. The graph on his account was too small for me to notice the comment that Yellin was allegedly strong arming Powell. So Antoni LIED. He did comment – in a very grotesque way.
Now I ignored his graph so I’m glad you took this hack job on.
His account should be on Truth Social as it is that incredibly dishonest. But hey – MAGA.
Here’s the thing with two faced MAGA EJ Antoni. He does seem to not like inflation – which is fine even though his measurements of actual inflation are often falling on the floor laughing level of absurdity.
He also clearly wants Trump to have a second term. But does this fake Ph.D. not get that Trump wanted to strong arm the FED when Trump was in office so as to further lower interest rates even as the GDP gap went to zero (pre-pandemic of course). And Trump has said he would do that again. Which means all competent economists have said would reignite inflation. But fake Ph.D. EJ Antoni does not get that? ODD!
Why would Antoni single out Yellen? Is it because she doesn’t look like a Treasury Secretary?
Trump chose Powell over Yellen because she is only 5’3″. Of course Milton Friedman was 5’0″.
Antoni is on a tirade to bash Biden. Sort of Bruce Hall on steroids.
Yes it turns out that today there are alternative products that will substitute hydrocarbons unless current prices are cut. I mean the alternatives are literally as free as the sun and the wind (you can’t monopolize or charge for them). The hydrocarbons have to beat the construction costs of those alternatives with their sum of [extraction, transportation, refinement and profit]. Only the last of those have much of any flexibility to try match an ever falling price of producing alternative energy plants.
I am not an economist, but maybe that would put a ceiling on those oil prices and how much they could drive up inflation?
“Antoni is on a tirade to bash Biden”
You nailed it. Not an economist – just a hack with a degree (which is what he was hired to be). He starts with the conclusion (Biden BAAAHD), then cherry-pick, ignore, and misrepresents data, until he has enough that the sheeps can be convinced he has proven his assigned conclusion.
As Macroduck noted – he is nothing more than a Kudlow minnie me.
if this were true, then Antoni has the ability to see into the future. there should be a money trade available from his insight. he should be all in on such a trade. if he is not, then you know this is simply a hack job on his part. because who would not want free money? especially since he can see into the future. seriously, is this the type of education he obtained at northern Illinois university?