Thursday, July 12, 2018

Bill McBride — Key Measures Show Inflation increased YoY in June


Finally!

Is the economy responding to increased military spending as Trump ramps up. Reagan redux?

Calculated Risk
Key Measures Show Inflation increased YoY in June
Bill McBride

34 comments:

Matt Franko said...

Nobody even knows what inflation is... Yellen just admitted this...

Konrad said...

On 20 Sep 2017, then-Fed Chair Janet Yellen told reporters that the USA’s low inflation was a “mystery” to her.

Michael Hudson says it’s only a “mystery” to elitists like Yellen, and to complete idiots like (you know who).

Hudson explains that the U.S. has low inflation because Americans have little money to spend, since most workers are debtors and renters.

That is, inflation is generally low because all the money is sucked up by bankers.

Meanwhile in some sectors of the U.S. economy, we have runaway inflation in things like college tuition, housing costs, new car loans, and so on.

Again, this is caused by the bankers, whose theft is abetted by idiots like (him again).

Konrad said...

.
Michael Hudson:
“When you hear the word inflation, it means rising wages. There hasn’t been any inflation, since there hasn’t been any rise in wages. There’s been a race to the bottom in terms of employment, and in terms of the minimum wage. There is no chance of inflation because, as Alan Greenspan explained ten years ago, workers are afraid to go on strike, and afraid to protest, because if they fall behind in their payments to the electric companies or the phone bill, their credit card rates will rise from 13% to 29%. When labor is cowed, there is no inflation.”

“The role of central banks today is to inflate asset prices, of stock prices, bond, and real estate, and to deflate the general economy. Central banks want to make sure that labor does not get any share of the added growth. This is the basic strategy of neoliberalism, which is the new orthodoxy.”


http://michael-hudson.com/2018/04/high-cost-economy/

Matt Franko said...

Hudson is unqualified...

Matt Franko said...

Yo, This is Trump’s (Science major) POLICY:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-fights-higher-wages-hardworking-americans/

Now if some douchebag Art major economist who has the same abilty for abstraction as a chimpanzee wants to instead create a figure of speech “inflation!” in an attempt to illustrate Trump’s policy to all the other Art Degree morons that shouldn’t effect the REAL policy being imposed by the more competent and qualified Trump...

Konrad said...

.
A different quote from a different article…

“Oliver Blanchard, Ben Bernanke, Gordon Brown, and others credited their own monetary policies for the remarkably low inflation and stable growth of what they called the ‘Great Moderation’ (Bernanke 2004), and proclaimed the ‘end of boom and bust,’ as Gordon Brown did in 2007. But it was precisely this period from the mid-1980s to 2007 that saw the fastest and most corrosive inflation in real estate, stocks, and bonds since World War II.

Nearly all this asset-price inflation was debt-leveraged. Money and credit were not spent on tangible capital investment to produce goods and non-financial services, and did not raise wage levels. Macroeconomic models since the 1980s have not included credit, debt, or the financial sector.”


http://michael-hudson.com/2016/08/finance-is-not-the-economy/

Again, the US and UK have had low general inflation because all the money is stolen by the FIRE sector.

Tom Hickey said...

See

Monetary Policy Without a Working Theory of Inflation
Daniel K. Tarullo, Former Governor, Federal Reserve Board
October 2017

Yet the central banks are tasked with managing inflation.

Tom Hickey said...

Wikipedia on DJT's education:

Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946, at the Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, Queens, New York City, the fourth of five children.[16] Trump grew up in Jamaica, Queens, and attended the Kew-Forest School from kindergarten through seventh grade. At age 13, he was enrolled in the New York Military Academy, a private boarding school, after his parents discovered that he had made frequent trips into Manhattan without their permission.[17][18]

In 1964, Trump enrolled at Fordham University.[14][19] After two years, he transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.[19][20] While at Wharton, he worked at the family business, Elizabeth Trump & Son.[21] He graduated in May 1968 with a Bachelor of Science in economics.[19][22][23]


Emphasis added.

Matt Franko said...

Also the MBA at Wharton is a Science degree, Iirc it’s a MSc Finance and Accounting...

Accounting is ideally a Science degree...

Noah Way said...

Let's see ... a decade of ginormous bailouts, massive deficit spending, huge tax cuts, what could possibly be causing inflation????

It's a big mystery, I just can't figure it out ...

Tom Hickey said...

And if you assumed his degree was an MBA, you’d be wrong. Trump holds a bachelor of science degree in economics from Wharton, earned after transferring in as a junior from Fordham University. Several early Trump profiles, including a 1973 New York Times piece, stated that he graduated first in his class at Wharton, but that has since been disputed. A 1968 commencement program does not list his name among students who graduated with honors.

Associated Press

Matt Franko said...

Well Trump it appears still thinks “we’re out of money” too so...

Point still remains that Economics is typically an Art Degree and it’s inappropriate inadequate training...

Noah Way said...

"Trump holds a bachelor of science degree in economics from Wharton"

He's an arts major!

Noah Way said...

Which brings up the question of how Franko's favorite Cheeto-in-Chief could be so smart if all he's got is an arts degree.

Matt Franko said...

Yo db it says bachelor of science...

Matt Franko said...

So you’re saying a BS is a BA?

Tom Hickey said...

Matt, you claim that people with PHDs in economics are "artists" with arts degrees, but Trump who only has a BS in economics is a scientist because he has a "bachelor's degree in science"?

Don't they teach logic and critical thinking in engineering school?

Matt Franko said...

The degree requirements are DIFFERENT for a BA vs. a BS...

Don’t they teach the concept of inequality in Philosophy????

Matt Franko said...

Tom,

I have you in checkmate...

To get out of it, you have to go find me a trained scientist or an engineer going all around saying “we’re out of kilograms!”

Just post the link here...

Tom Hickey said...

Matt, you need to find someone to defend your logic about Trump being a "scientist" because he has a "BS," while you claim that PHD economists are artists with arts degrees. Or that Greenspan is an artist because he's a clarinet player even though he has a PHD in economics. It's bonkers.

I was kind of wondering where some the stuff you have been saying is coming from. Now I know.

Tom Hickey said...

The degree requirements are DIFFERENT for a BA vs. a BS...

Stop trolling.

Matt Franko said...

Find me a trained scientist saying “we’re out of kilograms!”....

Matt Franko said...

https://www.bestvalueschools.com/faq/what-is-the-difference-between-a-b-a-and-a-b-s/

“Both the B.A., or Bachelor of the Arts, and the B.S., or Bachelor of Science, are four-year undergraduate degrees. The primary difference between the two types of degrees is the focus of the coursework students are required to complete in order to earn them.”

Matt Franko said...

Ok, So then why does the academe provide this distinction?

Matt Franko said...

https://www.barrons.com/articles/SB120917419049046805

“Though the work is, in fact, a collection of previously published articles, he says that it is hardly unusual, as some critics assert, for a collection of articles to be submitted as a thesis...... Greenspan claims to have authored it as CEA chairman. The general policy principles discussed in the chapter include the following: "Stimulus should be provided by tax reduction rather than by increases in government spending; tax reduction should be permanent rather than in the form of a temporary rebate; ”

Blah, blah, blah....

No rigor....

Matt Franko said...

https://www.ft.com/content/de31f704-cf2c-11e7-9dbb-291a884dd8c6

“Yellen describes low US inflation in 2017 as a ‘mystery’. Outgoing Fed chair reaffirms uncertainty over whether bank clearly understands causes”

Matt Franko said...

If you don’t even know what something is, why keep talking about it like it’s a real thing?

Matt Franko said...

Can there be an “effect” without a “cause”???? Nooooo...

Matt Franko said...

https://www.edglossary.org/rigor/

Tom Hickey said...

https://www.barrons.com/articles/SB120917419049046805

The quality of Greenspan's PHD thesis is irrelevant to the logical question I have asked you several time and you have addressed by reasserting your position. That is trolling.

Answer the question or STFU.

2. Can there be an “effect” without a “cause”???? Nooooo..

Simple causation that is expressible as a deterministic function, in which the independent variable and a dependent variable are related by a rule where single inputs determine corresponding single outputs, is not possible in cases of causation where there are many factors involved, some of which are proximate causes and others are remote causes, and some are attendant circumstances ("catalysts"). I

In addition, when the context is not fully known, the deterministic functions are ruled out and stochastic functions are brought in.

This is all part of science.

But the Fed is tasked with monetary policy and given a mandate to manage price level. Lacking a complete scientific theory of inflation, that means they have to use "art." This is wild known from reading the Fed minutes where there is wide disagreement, which would not be the case if it were possible to write deterministic functions.

So far no one has been able to do it. Can you?

Tom Hickey said...

BTW, on the subject of trolling.

A lot of people reading the comments may think that Egmont is trolling in that he keeps repeating the same criticism. But he is actually not trolling but reiterating a question that no economist has responded to. I have not attempted, since I am not an economist. Moreover, Egmont admits that his position is not original with him but was stated by Maurice Allais. Allais was an actual scientist and self-taught in economics, even though in won his Nobel in economics. Allais is not well-known in the English-speaking world since he wrote mostly in French.

Same with Bob Roddis. He may look to some like a troll since he continually asks the same questions.The only one that has responded in any detail is "Lord Keynes."

Noah Way said...

Tom serving it hot!

As to Egmont, he kills his own argument in the same way that Franko does: self-referencing. I am correct because I say so.

Egmont even provides links to himself. I wish Franko would.

Tom Hickey said...

As to Egmont, he kills his own argument in the same way that Franko does: self-referencing. I am correct because I say so.

In Egmont's defense, he cites French economist Maurice Allais as the source of his argument about profit. Allais was a physicist, so he likely got the math right.

Andrew Anderson said...

There hasn’t been any inflation, since there hasn’t been any rise in wages. Michael Hudson

Labor cartels are a very poor counter to the government privileged banking cartel for a couple of reasons:
1) While they still work, the non-union public resents them for such reasons as featherbedding, ridiculous work rules, etc.
2) The ability of employers to automate jobs away with what is, in essence, the public's credit dooms them anyway.

Now ethical fiat and credit creation won't solve all problems, but unethical fiat and credit creation undoubtedly caused a great many of them.