Woke Wall Street Journal Wokesplains Just How Bad Inflation Would Be Under Trump
Not talking about a whoopee cushion, either.
We figure a lot of people in the Trump campaign are gearing up to proclaim that the Wall Street Journal has gone woke and unreliable, because the Journal reported Thursday that its quarterly survey of economists found the majority believe that if Donald Trump returns to power, “inflation, deficits and interest rates would be higher” than if Joe Biden remains president. Yes, that “Wall Street Journal.”
“I think there is a real risk that inflation will reaccelerate under a Trump presidency,” said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group. That would likely lead the Federal Reserve to set interest rates higher than if inflation continues its downward trajectory, he added.
Baumohl was among 68 “professional forecasters from business, Wall Street and academia” who participated in the poll. In a refreshing reminder that even practitioners of the Dismal Science sometimes blow off parts of boring surveys, we learn that 50 of the 68 answered questions about Trump and Biden. Of them
56% said inflation would be higher under another Trump term than a Biden term, versus 16% who said the opposite. The remainder saw no material difference.
The economists’ inflation worries stemmed from Trump’s announced plans to add a 10 percent tariff to all imports, and his promise to launch a massive effort using the military to deport all undocumented immigrants, or at least as many as can be run down in some sort of dystopian action movie — complete with a typically realistic Trump fantasy about having migrants participate in cage fights for their freedom.
OK, that doesn’t appear to have figured into the economists’ forecasts, but only because econ nerds don’t follow sports.
The article cautions that for the candidates’ announced policies to actually be enacted, Congress would have to pass legislation that wouldn’t get thrown out of court. The Journal, probably being entirely too optimistic, suggests that “Trump’s plan to deport asylum seekers, for instance, would likely be challenged in court,” as if the courts in a second Trump regime would be allowed to oppose him.
The story also adds that whatever presidents and campaigns like to say,
presidents generally have much less influence on the economy and inflation than the business cycle, external shocks such as to the price of oil and the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate policies.
This too ignores Trump’s stated goal of gaining the power to declare any day sunny, whereupon the heavens must comply or be subjected to online harassment and death threats.
Also, in a shocker, the Journal points out that 51 percent of economists believe a second Trump presidency would drive up budget deficits, compared to 22 percent for Biden. That would also create inflationary pressure, and higher interest rates as the Federal Reserve would attempt to curb inflation: “59% of economists think rates would be higher under Trump, versus 16% under Biden.” Then again, Trump is pretty sure that presidents tell the Fed what to do, too, as several of the economists noted, citing Trump’s policy of pouting to make Fed Chair Jerome Powell lower rates before elections, which Powell refused to do. Trump allies are already champing at the bit to let Trump run roughshod over monetary policy, too. (This is not a mixed metaphor since both clichés involve horses.)
What the hey, Trump might even decide that high inflation should be met with even lower interest rates, blowing up inflation even more and requiring public executions of Federal Reserve officials to make inflation go down.
Matthew Luzzetti, chief US economist at Deutsche Bank Securities, said Trump’s fetishes for tariffs and for demonizing immigrants would both be terrible for the economy:
Deutsche Bank estimates a universal tariff of the sort Trump has outlined would increase overall prices by 1% to 2%. By contrast, high immigration in recent years might have reduced inflation by up to 0.5 percentage point by easing labor shortages after the pandemic, Luzzetti said.
Also too, the economists happily indulged in their ancient tribal sighs and lamentations that neither candidate is serious about bringing down the national debt, harrumph.
A few thought Biden would make inflation spike because of how Democrats keep trying to help people who would best be sent to the workhouses or transported to the colonies, while others said that there might not be all that much difference between the candidates on the economy, because something about the Senate not confirming Trump’s more radical picks for the Fed.
Gee, all of this sounds really familiar, in large part because goddamn it, Vox senior correspondent Eric Levitz was warning about every bit of it back in April, as Yr Wonkette noted at the time. So hey, validation from corporate economists, even.
Notably, if any of the economists in the survey shouted that fascism tends to be bad for economies, what the hell are you idiots doing acting as if any of this shit is normal, what the hell is wrong with you shitheads, the Journal makes no note of it.
[WSJ (gift link)]
I expect many, MANY stories of:
"Gee, when Dear Leader (PBUH) said he was gonna deport all the immigrants, I Thought he meant that evil, lawless ones in Democrat run cities who illegally vote! I didn't think he meant my workers! I've got crops rotting in my fields! Curse those Democrats for... something!"
And, "I didn't think food prices would rise because of deportation of workers! I'm paying five dollars for an apple! Why did Democrats do this?"
My Dad was visiting and he talked about how hard the non-English-speaking people worked on his yard. He is a HARDCORE Republican. I asked him about who would do that job for him if Trump was able to round up all of the "illegals" as has been suggested. Would the random underemployed white folks step in and do the same work as well for the same pay? Does he like produce, which would no longer be picked in the US?
He couldn't answer and went to the guest room.