RT @PIIE: Firing Fed chair Jay Powell will not end the Fed's independence overnight. The Fed was designed to resist short-run political pre….

RT @KClausing: Excellent commentary on the short and medium run risks surrounding Fed independence, from @jasonfurman. .

RT @DavidBeckworth: New working paper with @Pat_Horan92 where we provide a new decomposition of the inflation surge. Using a New Keynesian….

RT @PIIE: Firing Fed chair Jay Powell will not end the Fed's independence overnight. The Fed was designed to resist short-run political pre….

Another great discussion with @DKThomp on where we are in the macroeconomy, centered around the question: "If Trump's Economic Ideas Are So Bad, Why Isn't the Economy Worse?".

My NYT opinion on the threat to the Fed. I argue it has powerful short-run protections (including interest rates set by a 12 person committee). But it's largely defenseless against a sustained assault by two Presidents in a row.

The CPI-based Ecumenical Underlying Inflation Measure was 2.3% in June, up from 2.0% last month. Is the median of 7 different measures of inflation over 3, 6 and 12 months--all benchmarked to match the PCE (on average, lately PCE running higher). Expect this to keep rising.

Overall as expected but the expectation was more inflation. And I expect even more inflation. The timing of the tariff impact has been a bit slower than I might have thought but it is clearly coming through, firms burning off pre-tariff inventories, and more tariffs kicking in.

And shelter.

And headine CPI, which was higher than core for the month because energy prices up--after several months of decline.

Here are the full set of numbers. Notably everything ex housing is worse for the month of June, a reversal of the pattern we had seen earlier.

Here are core goods and core services. The service increase is relatively normal (even muted as shelter was low this month). Goods was unusually high including increases in tariffs sensitive items like appliances and apparel.

Inflation rose in June, with core CPI at an annual rate of:. 1 month: 2.8%.3 months: 2.4%.6 months: 2.7%.12 months: 2.9%. You can see signs of tariffs in these numbers and that is only likely to grow.

It is to the credit of the first Trump administration that they resisted this idea. I hope they do again for all of the policy and legal reasons @davidckamin outlines here.

RT @greg_ip: Quite the full political spectrum of economists joining in this amicus brief opposing Trump's use of IEEPA for across the boar….

RT @scottlincicome: 27 prominent economists come out swinging in US court against Trump's "emergency" tariffs. They (rightly) say: .-Trade….

Here are the other signatories to the Amicus Brief and a link to the brief itself.

The arguments are all the basic economics that I've explained elsewhere. (Many others have explained many times too.)

I join a group of economists in an Amicus Brief for the Appeals Court arguing that trade deficits do not meet the requirements of IIEPA, namely they are not an “unusual and extraordinary threat. to the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States.”

President Trump's focus on a Fed Chair who will slash rates is misguided even on his own terms:. 1 The Fed Chair is 1 of 12 votes, a political hack Chair won't get majority. 2 Even if FFR slashed the rates people care about, like mortgage, could go up w/ higher expected inflation.