We have our hand on the Bible swearing we are not making this story up:
A gang of 16 Nobel prize-winning economists signed a letter yesterday endorsing Biden for president because: “There is rightly a worry that Donald Trump will reignite inflation with his fiscally irresponsible budgets.”
But then our colleague, Scott Bessent, noticed something strange and ironic about the signatories: 13 of these economists signed a highly-publicized open letter three years ago assuring Americans that Biden’s “Build Back Better” spending spree would “ease longer-term inflationary pressures.”
Then—whoops!—18 months later inflation soared to 9.1% under Biden – the worst U.S. inflation in almost 40 years! This would be the medical equivalent of amputating the wrong leg.
Here’s the overlapping list of these economists who were spectacularly wrong in 2021, but whom we are supposed to believe are right this time around.
The chef’s kiss is that the first listed signer on both letters, George Akerlof, is Janet Yellen’s husband.
We argued then that Joe Stiglitz (and the rest of these scoundrels) should do the standup thing, send back their Nobels and PhDs, and admit that when it comes to the real world, they have no idea what they are talking about.
Instead, they are now predicting that if Trump is elected, he will reignite inflation even though the average inflation rate during Trump’s first term was 2.5% versus closer to 5.5% under Biden. Are these scholars so buttonholed in their ivory towers that they are unaware of this basic fact?
Here is the comparison of inflation under Trump and Biden.