Michigan Survey of Consumers and yesterday’s release of the Survey of Professional Forecasters agree.
Figure 1: Actual CPI inflation (black), Michigan survey (red), NY Fed survey (blue), Cleveland Fed SoFIE (light blue square) and Survey of Professional Forecasters (pink +), all year-on-year, in %. Michigan February is preliminary. Source: BLS, NY Fed, Cleveland Fed, Philadelphia Fed, and author’s calculations.
From November to February Michigan (prel.) change in y/y is 1.8 ppts. For SPF, it’s 0.4 ppts.
Could be Muchigan will moderate in the final reading for February. Preliminary Michigan data sometimes exaggerate, a reflection of small sample size.
I don’t mean to say the final reading WILL be lower than the preliminary. There is a pernicious habit among market and economics commentators to wave off results they don’t like be claiming to know which way revisions will go. Talking to the Antonis of the world here, of whom there are many.
Trump today: “He who saves his country does not violate any law.”
He’s literally quoting the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte as justification for ignoring the law. If only he knew French, he would just go with “L’État, c’est moi.”
This is what it has come to. He has proclaimed himself Emperor and Congress is fine with it.
And that Trump quote was re-tweeted by Elon Musk, who sees himself as also immune from all laws. Musk is the Heinrich Himmler of this administration. Musk has been campaigning for the neo-Nazi AfD in Germany. And JD Vance had a meeting with the AfD leadership shortly after his trip to Dachau, where apparently he took notes.
Keep in mind that the Roberts Supreme Court gave the President absolute immunity from crimes, so Trump isn’t that far off base. And I am sure that Attorney General Pam Bondi is prepared to argue that the same absolute immunity extends to the President’s designated abettors of crime such as Elon Musk.
Not very far off topic – bird flue in cars, cattle and people:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-bird-flu-strain-in-cows-and-animal-infections-raise-concern-for-human/
A new strain of the flu (they just keep coming) has been transmitted between cats, from humans to cats, from cat food to cats, from cattle to humansand from bird to feral cats – getting friskier.
Still nothing from the felon-in-chief other than hiding the evidence that it’s happening. Some of this reporting is based on a CDC “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report” which has since been edited to remove the information. The epidemic-enabler-in-chief is censoring government scientists to keep bird flu information from the public. Note that “Scientific American” has found some other excuse for the disappearance of the report, but there is already reporting indicating g that the CDC has been ordered to downplay bird flu.
The rapist-in-chief announced plans for a reduction in force (RIF) on Tuesday. Not that federal workforce rules matter now – or any other rule – but for those interested, here’s a brief description of how RIFs are supposed to work:
https://www.lawbc.com/what-can-happen-when-federal-career-employees-are-told-youre-fired/
Proof positive that inflation during the Biden Administration was not a problem and anyone who says it was a problem was simply gaslighting the public.
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60267#_idTextAnchor000
For households in every quintile (or fifth) of the income distribution, the share of income required to pay for their 2019 consumption bundle decreased, on average, because income grew faster than prices did over that four-year period;
All those poor people complaining they couldn’t afford food, shelter, and other necessities… BS.
All those middle class people complaining they couldn’t afford new vehicles or a new home… BS
All those upper class people complaining they couldn’t affort to continuing paying their student loans and buy necessities… BS (well, maybe this one is actually BS)
Because food, transportation, housing, healthcare, and insurance costs rose far less than incomes… across all quintiles.
Inflation was good for everyone! So maybe we need a target of 5% or more inflation?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/price-tracker/