As Arin says, Rattner committed chartcrime here. But there's a larger issue 1/
What the data actually show is that the US, which has done more fiscal stimulus than Europe, also has higher inflation. More careful people than Rattner have cited this as evidence that fiscal did it. But with only 2 data points, need to observe that other things are going on 2/
Europe came in to this with lower inflation than we did — ECB was less successful at achieving a 2% target. This baseline effect accounts for part of the difference 3/
Beyond that, BIS estimates that bottleneck effects bigger here than in Europe. Maybe US cost-cutting more intense, smaller margins for error? 4/
Chart 5/
Most striking — and a point that hasn't gotten nearly enough attention: no European Great Resignation. Labor force participation back to prepandemic levels 6/
That's huge. What explains it? Could be European reliance on job retention schemes rather than unemployment insurance. Could be that European work conditions for low-paid workers were better to begin with 7/
The US-euro comparison is very important. But jumping on it and saying it must be fiscal policy is bad economics 8/
And gotta say, today's fiscal hawks are showing some of the same symptoms as austerians a decade ago: sloppy analyses that confirm their priors, inventing new models on the fly to justify their stories, etc.. Think before posting 9/

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More from @paulkrugman

18 Nov
Need to guard against wishful thinking, but there do seem to be straws in the wind suggesting that supply-chain issues are getting less serious. Here's the Baltic Dry Index of shipping costs 1/
Big retailers seem to be doing fine on inventory for the holidays 2/ cnn.com/2021/11/16/inv…
Given the way these things typically work, I wouldn't be surprised if we hit peak inflation panic just as actual inflation is fading away 3/
Read 4 tweets
18 Nov
Some further thoughts on inflation and what to do next. Inflation has of course come in much higher than Team Transitory predicted — the Fed was predicting only 2.4% PCE growth as late as March. So the inflation worriers have in a way been vindicated, but ... 1/
The details of what's happened are very different from what they predicted early this year. 2/
Olivier Blanchard offered an admirably clear exposition: stimulus would lead to a huge surge in demand above capacity 3/ piie.com/blogs/realtime…
Read 15 tweets
14 Nov
Trying to clarify my own thoughts on inflation. I got inflation wrong; I didn't see the current surge coming. But why? I didn't think the fiscal stimulus early this year would boost demand as much as Summers et al predicted ... and, in fact, so far it hasn't 1/
Real final demand (excluding inventories) is up 2.6% over the past two years. That's well short of normal growth in potential output 2/
What's happened, however, is that we've faced supply constraints, both supply-chain issues in meeting huge demand for durable goods and withdrawal of workers from the labor force, i.e. Great Resignation 3/
Read 5 tweets
6 Nov
Question: Why was "infrastructure week" a joke under Trump, who could have gotten the votes at any time, only to become reality now despite razor-thin Dem majority? It wasn't just incompetence, although that too 1/
I think two factors. 1st, the McConnell wing of the GOP doesn't want a successful spending program, even under an R president, because that might help legitimize an increased govt role in general. That is, they opposed infra not bc it might fail but bc it might succeed 2/
2nd, Trump team was addicted to crony capitalism. They couldn't do a clean bill; it had to offer privatized stuff that would mean big bucks for their friends 3/ nytimes.com/2016/11/21/opi…
Read 4 tweets
5 Nov
A week of terrible political news for Democrats has also been a week of good news on the economy and Covid. But will the objectively good news move public sentiment? A few thoughts 1/
The employment report was almost all good news, confirming surveys suggesting that the third-quarter air pocket was behind us. Labor force participation still low, but overall recovery very much on track 2/
Aside from Delta receding, good news on the effectiveness of vaccine mandates. NYC at 91 percent compliance, not facing the crunch widely predicted 2/ nytimes.com/2021/11/01/nyr…
Read 8 tweets
28 Oct
What's actually happening on Democratic plans? I have no idea. We still seem to have a standoff between corporate Dems who won't say unambiguously that they'll vote for Build Back Better and progressives who won't vote for infrastructure without that assurance 1/
Assuming Dems get past this, one remaining question is whether the pay-fors will actually work — whether tax hikes and improved enforcement will actually cover the cost of new spending. But the key point here is that *it doesn't matter* 2/
The main reason Dems want a deficit-neutral bill — whereas Rs have no qualms about unfunded tax cuts — is that Joe Manchin seems to think deficits are important. But they aren't, in a world of negative real interest rates 3/
Read 4 tweets

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