Cents and Sensibility: the Inflation Guy Podcast

Ep. 134: What if Prices Really Were Stable?

Today the Inflation Guy answers a listener's question, which is 'if the US were ever to have sustained 0% inflation, what would the effects be?' It is a simple question but it leads to some profound thoughts about what price stability is, and what it means...if anything.

Of course, you have to listen to the Inflation Guy's weekly gripe first, but you can fast forward through that part. (It makes him feel good so we leave it in.)

NOTES

Nalebuff and Ayres Book: Why Not?: How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big And Small https://amzn.to/4hKssS8

Blog Post on interest rates and inflation: “Enough with Interest Rates Already” https://inflationguy.blog/2023/06/21/enough-with-interest-rates-already/

Blog Post on Corn: “Corn Prices – Has the Correction Run its Course?” https://inflationguy.blog/2022/09/21/corn-prices-has-the-correction-run-its-course/

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 (January 2025)” (https://inflationguy.blog/2025/02/12/inflation-guys-cpi-summary-january-2025/ )

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Ep. 133: This Month's CPI Report – I Guess We Are Still Transitory-ing?

It's the monthly inflation report for January's CPI, and this one was surprising. It would have been alarming, except that we have been through five years of inflation unlike anything we had seen since the 1980s. So, we're jaded. The Inflation Guy walks through today's report and considers wildfires, tariffs, and most-favored-nation status. A tour de force!

 

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 (January 2025)” (https://inflationguy.blog/2025/02/12/inflation-guys-cpi-summary-january-2025/ )

Blog on "Drug Prices and Most-Favored-Nation Clauses: Considerations" from August 2020 https://inflationguy.blog/2020/08/25/drug-prices-and-most-favored-nation-clauses-considerations/

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Ep. 132: Crazy is Anti-Inflationary

Today's episode is somewhat shorter than the norm, since last week's episode was a little longer than the norm. Today, the Inflation Guy notes that M2 money velocity declined very slightly in Q4, and points out a weird - but possibly important - effect that could have the perverse effect of dampening inflation slightly. (To be sure, the Inflation Guy thinks there are other, larger forces at play but this is an interesting one that is worth highlighting in case it continues!)

 

NOTES

Prior Podcasts from the IG on Velocity:

• Ep. 10: A High-Velocity Tour of Velocity (https://inflationguy.podbean.com/e/ep-10-a-high-velocity-tour-of-velocity/ )
• Ep. 34: Velocity Turns Higher...Whoops! (https://inflationguy.podbean.com/e/velocity-turns-higherwhoops/ )
• Ep. 50: What the Money Velocity Comeback Means for Inflation, and Investors (https://inflationguy.podbean.com/e/ep-50-what-the-money-velocity-comeback-means-for-inflation-and-investors/)
• Ep. 108: Revisiting Velocity - Myths and Reality (https://inflationguy.podbean.com/e/ep-108-revisiting-velocity-myths-and-reality/ )

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/ )

To Subscribe to Quarterly Inflation Outlook: https://inflationguy.blog/shop/   Now just $29.99/quarter!

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Ep. 131: How Tariffs Affect You - Three Things You Maybe Didn't Know

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/ )

To Subscribe to Quarterly Inflation Outlook: https://inflationguy.blog/shop/   Now just $29.99/quarter!

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Ep. 130: The Long-Term Effects of 4% Inflation vs 2%

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/ )

To Subscribe to Quarterly Inflation Outlook: https://inflationguy.blog/shop/   Now just $29.99/quarter!

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Ep. 129: This Month's CPI Report – This One Isn’t the Story

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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Ep. 128: Will Wildfires Change the Inflation Trajectory?

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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Ep. 127: The Point of Inflation Inflection

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/ )

To Subscribe to Quarterly Inflation Outlook: https://inflationguy.blog/shop/   Now just $29.99/quarter!

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Ep. 126: Firing Federal Workers is a Positive Supply Shock

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/ )

To Subscribe to Quarterly Inflation Outlook: https://inflationguy.blog/shop/   Now just $29.99/quarter!

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Ep. 125: This Month's CPI Report - Premature Accommodation

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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