That’s the title of this article.
Heritage Foundation Research Fellow EJ Antoni and Mises Institute Fellow Peter St Onge compiled the report for the Brownstone Institute for Social and Economic Research, a think tank that supports individual rights.
“When you correct government inflation statistics, it turns out we’ve been in recession since 2022,” St Onge wrote in an X (formerly Twitter) post unveiling the study last week.
I’ve rebutted this argument here – in particular there is no evidence the two authors have “corrected” the government inflation statistics. They have provided (with no documentation) their alternative inflation statistics. In particular, I’ve shown that the Antoni-St. Onge statistics are implausible. (There is also the question whether it is more appropriate to use house prices and interest rates than some sort of estimated owner equivalent rent).
Figure 1: BEA GDP (orange), GDP incorporating PCE using Case-Shiller House Price Index – national times mortgage rate factor index, using BEA weight of 15% (light green), using 30% (dark green), Antoni-St.Onge estimate (red square), all in bn.Ch.2017$ SAAR. NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. Source: BEA, S&P Dow Jones, Fannie Mae via FRED, NBER, and author’s calculations.
Figure 2: GDP in Ch.2017$ (bold black), using alternative consumption deflator, housing-in-PCE weights (light blue), in 2017 fast food$ (green), in 2017 Big Macs (brown), and in 2017% per Antoni-St.Onge (red square), all in billions. Big Mac prices interpolated linearly. NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. Source: BEA, BLS, NBER, and author’s calculations.
I provide the data to replicate my results here (no corresponding data are available from Antoni and St. Onge).
I will conclude by noting that Dr. Antoni declared a recession in 2022H1 (based on then released BEA data, but now not fitting due to the current vintage of data, also here), also declared that we never left recession in 2020 (so implicitly, we’ve been in recession since 2020!).
“America’s top Catholic Advocacy Organization: Leading the Fight for Faith, Family, and Freedom.”
This is where Antoni is publishing his trash now? I guess this supposed Catholic organization leas the fight for the freedom to flat out lie. I would say not very Christian but then Speaker Mike Johnson says he’s a Christian and he lies 24/7. MAGA!
I’m reading up on this CatholicVote organization which is very rightwing.
Against same sexy marriage.
Pro-life in the extreme.
Wants to ban LGBT-themed books from their local libraries.
Against assisting immigrants as if they were disciples of Stephen Miller.
The Catholic Church wants to be clear – they want to have nothing to do with this Trumpian trash known as CatholicVote.
You were doing so well until you got to that last sentence, and then you lost credibility on this topic.
You do not have to believe what Catholics believe.
You may believe LGBTQ is normal, some Christian’s and other people of the book can not.
You may believe aborting a fetus is health care others see the fetus as human beings.
The problem with pro life is it is not extreme, extreme pro life would be pure pacifist and strongly oppose donations to Ukraine, Israel, and all nuclear arms. See the Berrigans on War.
I suspect you are as tolerant as CatholicsVotes on your side of faith arguments.
“I suspect you are as tolerant as CatholicsVotes on your side of faith arguments.”
Your suspicions really don’t count for much. CatholicsVote has published a dishonest economic argument. Dishonest is dishonest. Period. Not a question of faith. In fact, CatholicsVote is a political organization, no matter whether it has a religious affiliation. Pretending that political issues are matters of faith is often just another form of dishonesty.
Credit to the Glenn S comment:
‘This report is from 2 pro trump economists, disagreeing hundreds of economists of various organizations and institutions. The above authors are from a pro trump organization that’s behind project 2025. A good , professional article would show opposing ideas. And why do the charts only begin in 2021? And any mention over covid and supply change issues?’
Alas, the Trump mafia decided to hurl insults at Glenn for simply being honest. Disagreeing with Trump and his lying minions can be hazardous to one’s health.
‘Zero remorse’: Trump doesn’t condemn gunman who allegedly threatened FEMA workers
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/zero-remorse-trump-doesn-t-condemn-gunman-who-allegedly-threatened-fema-workers/ar-AA1sFyiF?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=c04b4f145a5d475cb9ddd04bb592e09e&ei=7
Donald Trump came under fire Monday after not condemning an armed gunman who was arrested for allegedly threatening FEMA workers trying to help North Carolina victims of Hurricane Helene. Trump also continued to spread lies about FEMA and the federal government’s response to that devastating and deadly event. A reporter told Trump about the man who had been arrested, and that his threats had caused FEMA to “stand down” for safety reasons, which inhibited their ability to help victims. He asked the ex-president if it was “helping” the recovery efforts “to keep making these claims that FEMA is not doing their job?” Trump defended his lies and false attacks on the agency, and immediately replied, “I think you have to let people know how they’re doing.”
Trump could care less about how many people may have died in the aftermath of Helena. Heck – he did not give a damn about the deaths from COVID-19 either.
I get Governor DeSantis is not happy that his state may reject his severe anti-choice agenda via the ballot box but Gov. DeSantis is threatening to shut down TV stations for airing pro-choice ads. A clear violation of the First Amendment.
https://x.com/mjs_DC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1848374186814620151%7Ctwgr%5E079a585ccf13a987df0fa01b1e833c2a99c67f08%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fjabberwocking.com%2F
A couple of comments about Antoni’s “alternative facts”.
First, if fast food is their alternative price index, it is a strange one. According to the BLS weighting of consumer spending, fast food (coded as food away from home in limited service meals) comprises only 2.5% of household spending. It would be very weird to use such a tiny portion of the economy to define inflation and thereby economic recessions.
Second, using prices of home as their alternative price index also is strange. The price of a home includes both a consumption component and an investment component. The CPI is a consumption index — it’s right there in the name Consumer Price Index, so you should measure only the consumption component of a home.
A home is not just consumed. It is an asset just like stocks and bonds that have value. It is not consumed. It lasts for decades and can generally be sold for more than you paid. You don’t count the price of a home as inflation any more than you count the rising DOW Jones Index as inflation. It’s an asset, not consumption.
There is a component of home price that can be considered consumed and that is the cost of shelter. So you measure the owner’s equivalent rent as cost of shelter the same as you measure rent for an apartment as the cost of shelter. The rest of a home’s price is an asset, not consumption.
Assuming markets are reasonably efficient, the owner’s equivalent rent and apartment rents also include the cost of mortgage interest so if you try to tack that on you are double counting interest rates.
I get into trouble easy enough on my own Menzie. You know better than to get me going on the Catholics.
“There is also the question whether it is more appropriate to use house prices and interest rates than some sort of estimated owner equivalent rent.”
Just to be clear, there is a very common myth that owner’s equivalent rent is just an owner’s guess at how much they could rent their home for and subject to opinion. This is false. Owner’s equivalent rent is based on BLS sampling of the amount of rent actually charged for single family homes just like they sample the amount of rent charged for apartments. It is actual home owner’s rent, not an estimate.
There are over 14 million single family homes rented in the US, so there no shortage of equivalent rents to sample.
“CatholicVote.org is a conservative, non-profit political advocacy group based in the United States.”
— Wikipedia
Conservative political advocacy group. Like Heritage. Like Faux.
So while their willingness to traffic in dishonesty is annoying, it doesn’t seem likely to influence political outcomes much. Readers have already closed their minds.
As Martin Luther said of the Princes of the Catholic Church:
“Even if the Antichrist appears, what greater evil can he do than what you have done and do daily?”