Reason.com - Free Minds and Free Markets
Reason logo Reason logo
  • Latest
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Archives
    • Subscribe
    • Crossword
  • Video
  • Podcasts
    • All Shows
    • The Reason Roundtable
    • The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie
    • The Soho Forum Debates
    • Just Asking Questions
    • The Best of Reason Magazine
    • Why We Can't Have Nice Things
  • Volokh
  • Newsletters
  • Donate
    • Donate Online
    • Donate Crypto
    • Ways To Give To Reason Foundation
    • Torchbearer Society
    • Planned Giving
  • Subscribe
    • Reason Plus Subscription
    • Print Subscription
    • Gift Subscriptions
    • Subscriber Support

Login Form

Create new account
Forgot password

Inflation

Inflation Isn't Imaginary

Plus: Chinese border-crossers, gender transitions for kids, the politics of raw milk, and more...

Liz Wolfe | 3.12.2024 9:30 AM

Share on FacebookShare on XShare on RedditShare by emailPrint friendly versionCopy page URL
Media Contact & Reprint Requests
Person shopping in grocery store | Rob Levine/Newscom
(Rob Levine/Newscom)

What we know about the inflation report: A new Consumer Price Index report was released this morning.

"Overall inflation is expected to hold steady at 3.1 percent on an annual basis. That's down notably from a 9.1 percent high in 2022, but still quicker than the roughly 2 percent that was normal before the 2020 pandemic," reports The New York Times. "After stripping out volatile food and fuel costs for a better sense of the underlying trend, inflation is expected to moderate to 3.7 percent, down from 3.9 percent in January compared with a year earlier."

"The core consumer price index, excluding food and energy, probably rose 0.3% in February," according to Bloomberg's economists Anna Wong and Stuart Paul. Though the news is not bad, per se, "we don't expect the February CPI report to provide clear enough evidence of disinflation to boost the Fed's confidence to cut rates," report Wong and Paul.

Of course, the month-over-month jump matters for people's perceptions of inflation, and the mixed findings in the latest report don't mean people feel financially recovered: part of the Federal Reserve's approach was jacking up the interest rate—to 5.3 percent, the highest rate since the 2007-'08 recession—which means housing transactions have slowed. It's expensive for people to borrow right now, and that has massive economic effects, including making people feel stuck in their existing housing situations since it's an expensive time to buy.

"Shelter inflation is not cooling as quickly as hoped," notes the Times, and "various kinds of insurance—including car, medical and property protection—are costing more."

Everything is not, in fact, peachy: Pollsters have been left scratching their heads wondering why consumer sentiment does not appear to be particularly positive, even though a recession has been somewhat narrowly avoided. I wonder if it's at least in part because people sense political dishonesty about how we got into this mess in the first place.

"Democrats were willing to tolerate some inflation when they passed the American Rescue Plan in 2021—perhaps underestimating or forgetting how much people hate rising prices—but they also argue that this particular bout was mostly caused by production and shipping delays, as well as unpredictable shifts in what people were spending money on," notes a lengthy Politico feature from last month. "The [Biden] administration has also put blame on companies for taking advantage of the moment. White House economic adviser Lael Brainard told reporters…that consumer brands and grocery store chains need to bring down their pricing from pandemic-era levels."

It seems like that potent mixture of stubborn inflation, elevated interest rates, and political blameshifting leads to people feeling bad about the economy, even if things are trending in the right direction.


Scenes from New York: A must-read piece, "From China to New York, by Way of the Southern Border," from The New York Times.


QUICK HITS

  • "Sitting among the traveling press on campaigns of people like John Kerry and Barack Obama, I heard how campaign reporters talked, how they thought of their jobs," writes Matt Taibbi over at Racket News. "They were fiercely protective of their gatekeeping role, which gave them enormous power. If reporters didn't think a candidate was good enough for them—if he was too 'kooky' like Ron Paul, too 'elfin' like Dennis Kucinich, or too 'lazy' as just a handful of influential reporters decided about Fred Thompson—the 'Boys on the Bus' would snort and trade cutting remarks in riffing sessions before and after events. Campaigns would be elevated or die in these moments. I thought it was crazy, and said so in print, which made me a pariah, and I never thought it would end. Then Trump came along and destroyed the whole system with one stroke, getting elected in spite of the blunt disapproval of media."
  • "In what appears to be the first criminal case of its kind, two teenage boys were charged under a 2022 Florida law for allegedly creating AI-generated [nude] images depicting middle school classmates," reports Wired. 
  • "Former President Trump vowed Monday to 'free' Jan. 6 rioters as one of his first acts if he's elected for a second term in November," reports Axios. 
  • Inside the politics of raw milk, which is now trad- or conservative-coded.
  • Checking in on the Germans:

just found out about this German guy who travels around the country on his bicycle reporting parking violations as a hobby (he does not get paid to do this).

Germans yearn to live a very specific kind of way. pic.twitter.com/GrZaV6lYdt

— pagliacci the hated ???? (@Slatzism) March 10, 2024

  • ¡AFUERA!

Milei just sacked the secretary of labor on live TV for not reviewing the decree by Cristina that increased executive branch salaries by default (which Milei reverted yesterday)
pic.twitter.com/Ijaeufhav9

— BowTiedMara (@BowTiedMara) March 11, 2024

  • This piece, "Freedom of Sex," in New York magazine, is described as "the moral case for letting trans kids change their bodies." It's getting a lot of airtime, but I find it to be crucially flawed (as do others).
  • lol:

I suspect this is how the anxious climate folks feel generally

Except obviously my problem is actually real and important, unlike theirs

— pjeffa (????,????) (@jeff82874662) March 8, 2024

Start your day with Reason. Get a daily brief of the most important stories and trends every weekday morning when you subscribe to Reason Roundup.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

NEXT: Without More Accountability, Sunshine Laws Are Toothless

Liz Wolfe is an associate editor at Reason.

InflationEconomyJoe BidenBiden AdministrationEconomicsGender IdentityGenderPoliticsReason Roundup
Share on FacebookShare on XShare on RedditShare by emailPrint friendly versionCopy page URL
Media Contact & Reprint Requests

Show Comments (407)

Latest

How Tariffs Are Breaking the Manufacturing Industries Trump Says He Wants To Protect

Eric Boehm | From the July 2025 issue

The Latest Escalation Between Russia and Ukraine Isn't Changing the Course of the War

Matthew Petti | 6.6.2025 4:28 PM

Marsha Blackburn Wants Secret Police

C.J. Ciaramella | 6.6.2025 3:55 PM

This Small Business Is in Limbo As Owner Sues To Stop Trump's Tariffs

Eric Boehm | 6.6.2025 3:30 PM

A Runner Was Prosecuted for Unapproved Trail Use After the Referring Agency Called It 'Overcriminalization'

Jacob Sullum | 6.6.2025 2:50 PM

Recommended

  • About
  • Browse Topics
  • Events
  • Staff
  • Jobs
  • Donate
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Contact
  • Media
  • Shop
  • Amazon
Reason Facebook@reason on XReason InstagramReason TikTokReason YoutubeApple PodcastsReason on FlipboardReason RSS

© 2024 Reason Foundation | Accessibility | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

r

Do you care about free minds and free markets? Sign up to get the biggest stories from Reason in your inbox every afternoon.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

This modal will close in 10

Reason Plus

Special Offer!

  • Full digital edition access
  • No ads
  • Commenting privileges

Just $25 per year

Join Today!