At min 0:29 of this clip from FoxBusiness:
I suspect Antoni views these predictions as “suspicious” only because they run counter to his priors.
Remember this is the guy who looked at the import price index, and concluded tariffs hadn’t raised prices facing American households and firms, forgetting that the import price index doesn’t include tariffs…
In any event, Antoni takes issue with the 55% tariff pass through to consumers, saying that none of the apocalyptic price increases had yet shown up. I would say (as a person who actually took a PhD field exam in international economics) that there is actually substantial evidence of price increases to consumers, especially once one takes into account the timing of actually implemented tariffs (remember all those “pauses”), and the time taken for pass through to occur.
Regarding actual effective tariff rates, vs. Trump-declared tariff rates, we can show the disjuncture:
Figure 1: Average effective tariff rate (blue), and average declared tariff rate (tan), both in %. Source: OECD Interim Economic Outlook, Paweł Skrzypczyński.
The “effective” tariff rate shown above is calculated by dividing tariff revenue by imports. The relevant effective tariff rate only took off to around May, to 8.3%, while the Trump-declared tariff rate was much higher, much earlier. I think we can expect to see much higher effects once price data is reported again.
30 years from now you’ll be telling your grandchildren:
“… and I swear to god, then he demolished the White House.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/10/20/white-house-begins-demolishing-east-wing-facade-build-trumps-ballroom/
I know you have never portrayed yourself as an expert on China, and that you feel just because you are ethnic Chinese doesn’t mean you have to “answer for” or criticize everything China does (and I agree with you on the latter). But I think even just “casual” watchers of China, should be paying very close attention now.
https://www.visiontimes.com/2025/10/20/shock-in-beijing-nine-generals-purged-before-the-fourth-plenum.html
https://www.visiontimes.com/2025/10/20/are-hu-chunhua-and-wang-yang-poised-for-a-comeback-as-the-ccps-fourth-plenum-nears.html
Even China is sinking into deeper authoritarianism. I am not sure it is surprising, nor any more newsworthy than what happens on that front here in the US
Knew about the purges, but not the whispers. Nice catch.
Xi has long practiced the Stalin approach to maintaining power: give promising bureaucrats increasing responsibility, and as they prove themselves increasingly capable, purge them. The timing is obvious; the Plenary allows CCP officials to gossip en masse, and now they’ll gossip about the purges. Bonus points for Xi.
Unpurging, if that’s what going on, is less common and more interesting. The real estate disaster has been underway for 5 years and the latest GDP data show that policymakers have still not found a way out of it. Turning to previously purged reformers? That’s a serious move, suggesting Xi sees serious tension between his own dogma and risks to his authority from poor economic performance.
If the whispers are true, and if Xi hands real authority to reformers, and if these reformers are the right ones, then we’re in for a fascinating time. Heck, it’ll be fascinating even if these aren’t the right reformers.
But he is the recession whisperer