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Notes -
The market expectations for inflation might expect it to go down, but they also didn’t expect the inflation to happen in the first place. These have been consistently wrong for past year, why should we believe these are correct now?
See for example the nice graph in this blog post.
The US money supply has shrunk slightly since the start of 2022:
https://centerforfinancialstability.org/amfm_data.php
There is not enough money to keep up the present level of spending. Hence, there is not enough to keep up inflation.
With market expectations, I take this to be strong evidence that inflation will fall to about 2% in the next few years.
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Cochrane, whom I linked, has been predicting inflation way back in 2020 and early 2021, purely as a result of massive fiscal stimulus. Lawrence Summers did the same at the time, and was widely ridiculed. I mean, shit, I did it myself, and I benefited from this prediction.
The problem here is that if I point to people who predicted inflation at this time and turned out to be correct, you'll say "yes, but they predicted 8 out of last 2 inflation spurts", and, indeed, you'll be correct. Nevertheless, this attitude:
is just terrible. Just because I can't do better doesn't mean that I somehow logically have to accept shit predictions.
Of course, but you know what's the lesson here? Just ignore Nate Silver. I cannot predict who will win the Super Bowl any better than my crazy uncle, but that doesn't mean that I have to listen to my crazy uncle, if he has terrible track record.
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Likewise given how the official inflation numbers have consistently failed to reflect actual prices why should we believe that "2%" value in the first place.
You know you once asked me why I'm so dismissive of you, and I refrained from answering lest I run afoul of the antagonism rule, but to be blunt this sort of attitude right here is why.
@IprayIam (who I don't think has made the jump to the new site) made an effort post about the threat of inflation. You made a reply to the effect of "WeLl AkShUaLly ExPeRtS aGreE tHaT InFlAtIoN FeArS aRe OvErBlOwn". I replied with some personal observations supporting IprayIam's claims, and you accused me of making shit up, to which I replied with a !remindme link. 6 months later when the link pops, we're looking at a 40 year high for inflation and you're pulling the "WeLl AkShUaLly ExPeRtS aGreE" bullshit yet again.
My reply to that is well actually IprayIam called it, his/my/our low-iq Hueristics based on
nothingchanges in our monthly expenses and a read of the local business environment turned out more accurate predictors than your expert consensus yet somehow despite having made the call correctly I'm the one who needs to update my priors rather than you.More options
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To add further credibility to the CPI, it also roughly agrees with inflation measures constructed using different methodologies, e.g. the GDP deflator. Is it perfect? No. There are especially problems measuring over long periods of time. However, it's a good approximate indicator of what's going on with prices.
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