Opening Statement: Despite President Joe Biden’s repeated assertions that inflation is moving in the right direction, recent data has led experts to cast doubt on this claim. The consumer price index (CPI) increased 0.3% in April, marking the third month in a row of consistently high inflation, suggesting that the rate of price increases is not moving closer to the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%, according to experts interviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Key Points:
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Experts argue that there is no empirical evidence to support the claim that inflation is trending towards 2%.
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E.J. Antoni, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, stated that the data does not support a trend towards 2% inflation.
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From February 2021 until the height of inflation under Biden in June 2022, the average annualized monthly rate of inflation was 8.6%.
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From July 2022 to April 2024, the average annualized rate of inflation was 3.3%, indicating a move towards an annual inflation rate in the low 3’s.
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During the Trump administration, from February 2017 to January 2021, the same rate was just 1.9%.
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Biden has claimed that inflation has fallen more than 60% from its peak, comparing the rate at its highest of 9% year-over-year in June 2022 to its current rate.
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Despite the rate of inflation having dropped significantly, prices are still 19.3% higher than when Biden first took office and are rising every month.
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Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, expressed concerns about inflation, stating that “there are a lot of inflationary forces in front of us” and that the underlying inflation may not go away as expected.
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Dimon also warned about the potential for higher rates and stagflation leading to stress in real estate, leveraged companies, and private credit.
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The Federal Reserve has indicated that rates will likely stay higher for longer, and financial markets are adjusting to the expectation of a longer period of high rates.
Sources:
finance.yahoo.com/news/jamie-dimon-delivers-startling-message-113700097.html
dailycaller.com/2024/05/19/biden-inflation-right-direction-numbers-arent-clear-experts/
Just to reiterate: inflation is not trending to 2.0%, it was never trending to 2.0%, and it won’t begin trending to 2.0% until the Fed stops financing the Treasury’s multi-trillion-dollar deficits; everyone who told you we were moving towards the 2.0% target knowingly lied: pic.twitter.com/N182vMNzzX
— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) May 15, 2024
