Today, Jay Powell will show us what type of pilot he is. By repeatedly raising interest rates, he has cut power many times. There is no doubt that we are descending; the rate of inflation is unambiguously coming down. But we are still too high. Will he follow a stable plan and make adjustments to the timing? Or fly by the seat of his pants and yank back the throttle one more time? The indications are not good. We'll know within minutes.

To understand the trend in the inflation rate, it is important to compare the raw (i.e. not seasonally adjusted) month-to-month rates with the rates from one year before. This comparison offers a very different impression from an analysis that looks only at the recent trend in the seasonally adjusted inflation rate. The year-to-year comparison of raw rates suggests that inflation has come down substantially in the last 12 months.

I wonder if Kevin McCarthy understands that when you pull this kind of stunt, things can go wrong in ways you don’t anticipate.

The summary that you're likely to read in the paper today about the news contained in the recent observations of the Consumer Price Index is that 'inflation declined notably.' This is simply wrong. The new information revealed by these numbers is that prices increased at a faster rate between February to March. To be precise, they increased at a faster rate between February and March of this year than between February and March last year.

A new report has an update on decisions at Silicon Valley Bank: “[E]xecutives knew early on that higher interest rates could jeopardize the bank’s future earnings. Instead of shifting course to mitigate that risk, they doubled down on a strategy to deliver near-term profits...”