although they over-estimated in 2023-24.
Figure 1: Actual year-on-year CPI inflation (bold black), lagged expectations from U.Mich. Survey of Consumers (red), [median] from NY Fed (brown), [mean] from Cleveland Fed Survey of Firms Inflation Expectations (SoFIE) (light blue +), all in %. NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. Source: BLS, U.Mich via FRED, NY Fed, Cleveland Fed, NBER and author’s calculations.
Well, this is a first. Trump’s DOJ is about to create a $1.7 billion slush fund for Trump from your tax dollars.
Trump is agreeing to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS in a settlement that gives him $1.7 billion to use as he sees fit to compensate his political allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration. This includes the 1,600 convicted January 6 rioters.
That’s $1.7 billion to fund Trump’s personal brownshirt army. Victor Orban must be jealous.
A commission of five will oversee the fund, selected by Trump. The commission is not required to disclose procedures or even who they make awards to.
Note that the lawsuit is based on the illegal release of Trump’s tax returns in 2018 when Trump was running the IRS. So he’s suing the agency that he ran and making a settlement with the DOJ that he also runs.
The irony is that the Supreme Court gave Trump unlimited immunity for any crimes he might commit while simultaneously allowing him to sue himself for illegal actions of the IRS agency he was in charge of.
We have truly reached bizarro land.
The convicted Jan 6ers will get cash from Trump right after the $2000 checks for the DOGE cost savings arrive. Why would he give his friends some of his (formerly our) money when he can get someone else to pay for it should Trump want to reward allies with $?
Besides, the transaction with the Jan 6ers is complete. They won’t get anything more until they do more. Perhaps ballot drop boxes in certain locations could use a good burning.