Thoughts from the Frontline: Tag = "cpi"

Flip Side of the Inflation Coin
  • July 14, 2023

Flip Side of the Inflation Coin

The market, and maybe all of us, would like to believe the latest 3% annual CPI number was a harbinger of ever-lower inflation, and we are on the road to 2% inflation by year end. I would argue, “Not so fast.” Inflation is far from dead, and CPI will likely go slightly up between now and the end of the year. The Fed has multiple problems we will examine over the next few weeks.

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Adjustments Matter
  • February 17, 2023

Adjustments Matter

Federal Reserve officials like to call their decisions “data dependent.” Business leaders say it a little differently, often “data driven.” The point, in both cases, is something like: “We consider relevant data when making important decisions.”

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Inflation Sinks In
  • September 16, 2022

Inflation Sinks In

Remember when inflation was going to be transitory? Good times. I was in that camp myself early on, as were some serious analysts I greatly respect (and still do). Then the data began to show core inflation would be stickier than expected, and I turned in my Team Transitory T-shirt. I appreciate people who admit their mistakes. We all make them.

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Inflation Thoughts
  • February 18, 2022

Inflation Thoughts

But mouse-friend, you are not alone
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes of Mice and Men
Go oft awry,
And leave us only grief and pain,
For promised joy!

—Robert Burns, “To a Mouse,” English translation

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Inflation by the Numbers
  • December 17, 2021

Inflation by the Numbers

Milton Friedman famously said inflation is “always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” He was right but that short statement doesn’t fully explain how inflation works. It has other causes, too. The period in which he did his most famous research showed inflation was clearly a monetary phenomenon, but I’m not sure he would make the same assertion today.

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Inflation: Less Transitory than Expected
  • September 17, 2021

Inflation: Less Transitory than Expected

If the inflation numbers leave you scratching your head, join the club. The August data was especially perplexing. The Producer Price Index came in hot, up 8.3% in the last year, inviting 1970s comparisons. Obviously, our current situation is different in many ways. But so were the 1970s, at first.

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