It seems every day these days we hear about another tariff being applied to a trading partner of the U.S. (or, more usually, being threatened). The usual media reaction to these threats are something along the lines of saying "Oh my sainted aunt. This sort of talk gives me the vapors" because it is so, so, so bad. Tariffs are archaic shibboleths that no truly modern economist would ever support.

Come to think of it, that sounds like the archaic notion that money causes inflation. But we digress.

The Inflation Guy in today's episode discussed three things about tariffs that you might have thought you knew...and certainly everyone else seems to think they know...but which don't really work that way in the real world.

NOTES

Yesterday’s Inflation Guy blog on this topic: “Trump Tactical Targeted Tariffs: A Reminder of the Impact of Tariffs” https://inflationguy.blog/2025/01/29/trump-tactical-targeted-tariffs-a-reminder-of-the-impact-of-tariffs/

Ashton, Michael, The Efficient Tariff: Systematically Balancing Security and Welfare Concerns (March 1, 1992). The American Economist, Vol 36, No 1, 1992, pp 44-52. , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2915287

Very important blog post: “What Makes a Stable Coin Stable?” https://inflationguy.blog/2024/10/31/what-makes-a-stable-coin-stable/

Blog for this month’s CPI: “Inflation Guy’s CPI Summary (December 2024)” (https://inflationguy.blog/2025/01/15/inflation-guys-cpi-summary-december-2024/ )

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Today the Inflation Guy answers a reader question. What are the long-term effects of having 4% inflation compared with 2% inflation? Does that small increase in the inflation rate have any important ramifications?

Hooo yeah you betcha it does. The Inflation Guy goes through a number of them, and feels like he probably left some out in the process.

Along the way, he also had some choice remarks about why the Federal Reserve next week and over the next few months, even though it has no economic reason to cut rates, may well still do so. Find out why.

NOTES

Very important blog post: “What Makes a Stable Coin Stable?” https://inflationguy.blog/2024/10/31/what-makes-a-stable-coin-stable/

Blog for this month’s CPI: “Inflation Guy’s CPI Summary (December 2024)” (https://inflationguy.blog/2025/01/15/inflation-guys-cpi-summary-december-2024/ )

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Let's face it: there is nothing more exciting than the monthly consumer inflation report. Don't we all agree on that? Is there any day that we collectively brace the day with such enthusiasm as the day the CPI report comes out? Surely not.

However, this month...the December CPI...just isn't the story. The Inflation Guy today dutifully addresses the data, but more importantly focuses on how the data is surely going to be different going forward due to many, many causes for inflection that are operating right now. This will change data, markets, and narratives. The IG guides you through it all!

NOTES

Very important blog post: “What Makes a Stable Coin Stable?” https://inflationguy.blog/2024/10/31/what-makes-a-stable-coin-stable/

Blog for this month’s CPI: “Inflation Guy’s CPI Summary (December 2024)” (https://inflationguy.blog/2025/01/15/inflation-guys-cpi-summary-december-2024/ )

Ep. 127: The Point of Inflation Inflection (https://inflationguy.podbean.com/e/ep-127-the-point-of-inflation-inflection/ )

Website for California Wildfire official tracking (https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents )

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It's 2025, and the Inflation Guy - like inflation itself, actually - is not yet dead. After a one-month hiatus, he kicks off the new year with a quick review of the current state of affairs and then addresses the question of whether the catastrophic California wildfires will help push inflation higher. It isn't as if that is the most-important thing to think about, when it comes to those fires - but it is worth thinking about all of the implications of large-scale disasters.

ERRATUM- IG refers to Bullard. Brain freeze. He meant Waller, a current member of the Board of Governors at the Fed.

NOTES

Very important blog post: “What Makes a Stable Coin Stable?” https://inflationguy.blog/2024/10/31/what-makes-a-stable-coin-stable/

Blog for this month’s CPI: “Inflation Guy’s CPI Summary (November 2024)” (https://inflationguy.blog/2024/12/11/inflation-guys-cpi-summary-november-2024/ )

Last 2024 Podcast “Ep. 127: The Point of Inflation Inflection” (https://inflationguy.podbean.com/e/ep-127-the-point-of-inflation-inflection/ )

Old Blog: “Some Effects on Inflation from Harvey and Irma” (from 2017) (https://inflationguy.blog/2017/09/11/some-effects-on-inflation-from-harvey-and-irma/ )

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For more than a year now, the story about inflation and why inflation was almost certainly going to stay high (in the 'high 3s, low 4s' on median inflation, as the Inflation Guy has long held) was a story about the guaranteed rebound in money velocity. That has been an easy story and forecasting medium-term inflation has been consequently pretty easy.

That is changing.

Velocity has made a round trip to where it was prior to COVID. And that means that the underlying drivers of inflation going forward are changing. In this episode, the Inflation Guy explains what that means for the future of inflation.

NOTES

Very important blog post: “What Makes a Stable Coin Stable?” https://inflationguy.blog/2024/10/31/what-makes-a-stable-coin-stable/

Blog for this month’s CPI: “Inflation Guy’s CPI Summary (October 2024)” (https://inflationguy.blog/2024/11/13/inflation-guys-cpi-summary-october-2024/ )

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This is one of the rare podcast episodes that you might consider listening to at 75% speed instead of 125%. Because the Inflation Guy is feeling feisty, and when he feels feisty he talks fast. And he's feisty because today (why today, of all days? No one knows) he is especially triggered by the bad economics going around that suggests that mass layoffs of Federal employees would be recessionary and very painful. Au contraire, says the Inflation Guy (or he would say that, were he French) - firing Federal workers is a positive supply shock.

Listen, and find out in what way laying off Federal workers is like mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

NOTES

Goodhart, Charles and Manoj Pradhan, The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Societies, Waning Inequality, and an Inflation Revival (Product link: https://amzn.to/493QbJK )

Very important blog post: “What Makes a Stable Coin Stable?” https://inflationguy.blog/2024/10/31/what-makes-a-stable-coin-stable/

Blog for this month’s CPI: “Inflation Guy’s CPI Summary (October 2024)” (https://inflationguy.blog/2024/11/13/inflation-guys-cpi-summary-october-2024/ )

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Well, it was always a risk for the Fed to start their rate-cutting path with a highly-unusual 50bps cut, while inflation was still high. But after today's CPI report, that unusual (some would say suspiciously political-looking) move puts the Fed in a difficult bind. In this episode, the Inflation Guy talks about the CPI report and explains how the Fed-Congress quid-pro-quo that has existed for decades now puts the FOMC in a sticky situation.

NOTES

Very important blog post: “What Makes a Stable Coin Stable?” https://inflationguy.blog/2024/10/31/what-makes-a-stable-coin-stable/

To Subscribe to Quarterly Inflation Outlook: https://inflationguy.blog/shop/ (we may close up subscriptions to this soon)

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Contrary to a lot of expectations, we already seem to know the basic shape of American government going forward, with Donald Trump as President with a Republican Senate and (likely) a marginally Republican House. In this podcast episode, the Inflation Guy addresses the initial market moves, which he characterizes as the "Trump caricature" response, and explains which of these moves make sense, and which are likely senseless knee-jerk reactions to cartoonish representations of Trump's likely priorities come January 20th.

NOTES

Ashton, Michael, The Efficient Tariff: Systematically Balancing Security and Welfare Concerns (March 1, 1992). The American Economist, Vol 36, No 1, 1992, pp 44-52. , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2915287

Blog post on sizing positions when volatility changes: “Kicking Tails” (Feb 2018) https://inflationguy.blog/2018/02/12/kicking-tails/

Blog for this month’s CPI: “Inflation Guy’s CPI Summary (September 2024)” (https://inflationguy.blog/2024/10/10/inflation-guys-cpi-summary-september-2024/ )

Very important blog post: “What Makes a Stable Coin Stable?” https://inflationguy.blog/2024/10/31/what-makes-a-stable-coin-stable/

To Subscribe to Quarterly Inflation Outlook: https://inflationguy.blog/shop/ (we may close up subscriptions to this soon)

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