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    U.K. Inflation Rate Slows to 10.7 Percent

    The pace of price rises in November edged lower, from 11.1 percent, but households are still being squeezed as wages fail to keep up.Britain’s inflation rate eased away from a 41-year high on Wednesday, but the slowdown brings only limited relief to a nation gripped by a deep cost-of-living crisis.Consumer prices in Britain rose 10.7 percent in November from a year earlier, bringing the rate of inflation down slightly from 11.1 percent in October, which was the highest annual rate since 1981, the Office for National Statistics said.Despite this tentative sign that inflation might have peaked, British households are being squeezed by high energy bills, food costs and mortgage rates, while wage growth is failing to keep up with inflation. Britons are facing a sharpest decline in living standards over the next two years in records dating to the mid-1950s, which is prompting a growing wave of labor unrest. Railroad and postal workers are on strike on Wednesday over demands for higher pay, while nurses are set to walk off the job on Thursday.On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.4 percent in November, easing the torrid pace of October when they climbed 2 percent in a single month because of higher energy costs, despite billions spent by the government to cap household gas and electric bills.Core inflation, which excludes energy and food prices, slowed to an annual rate of 6.3 percent, from 6.5 percent in October. Economists had expected core inflation to hold steady, according to a survey by Bloomberg. A slowdown in transportation prices, particularly for fuel, as well as clothing and recreation services, all contributed to the lower overall inflation rate, while rising prices in restaurants and for groceries partially offset that. Food and drink prices climbed 16.4 percent in November from a year earlier.As a whole, Wednesday’s inflation data are “undoubtedly welcome,” Sandra Horsfield, an economist at Investec, wrote in a note. But “at 10.7 percent consumer price inflation is still running well ahead of average income growth, causing pain that households can readily attest to.”“There is still a long way to go before the all-clear on inflation can be sounded,” she added.The deceleration in the overall inflation rate will be encouraging for Bank of England policymakers who have sharply raised interest rates to try to tamp down inflation. Inflation also slowed more than expected in the United States, data released on Tuesday showed.But this isn’t enough for central bankers to declare victory, as they target a 2 percent inflation rate. Policymakers want to ward against the risk that high inflation lingers for years to come. They are alert to how much businesses pass on price increases to customers and how much wages rise in response to the higher cost of living and a tight labor market.Data published on Tuesday showed that average pay in Britain, excluding bonuses, rose an annual rate of 6.1 percent in the three months to October. Even though that’s slower than the rate of inflation, policymakers argue that this pickup in wages is still too high to be sure inflation can sustainably return to target. On Thursday, Bank of England policymakers are expected to raise interest rates for a ninth consecutive time, to 3.5 percent from 3 percent. The half-point increase is expected to match rate changes by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday and the European Central Bank on Thursday. All three central banks are expected to decelerate from previous increases in interest rates of three-quarters of a point.Policymakers are expected to slow the pace of rate increases as they assess the impact of months of tighter monetary policy in damping economic demand to squash inflationary pressures. In Britain, the central bank’s rising benchmark rate, which has climbed from 0.1 percent a year ago, has already led to a notable increase in mortgage rates, with millions of households facing sharp increases in payments next year, and house prices falling.While the inflation outlook is uncertain, the Bank of England predicts that the rate of price increases will slow sharply from the middle of next year as past jumps in energy prices drop out of the annual calculations.But the cost of high inflation won’t fall away so quickly. The British economy is likely already in a recession that the central bank predicts to last all through next year. Household finances will be under “significant pressure” from below-inflation wage gains, higher mortgage costs and an expected increase in unemployment, according to a financial stability report by the Bank of England published on Tuesday.The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a nonprofit, said on Wednesday that more than seven million households were “going without essentials,” which meant they had reported going hungry or skipping meals or didn’t have adequate clothing, based on a survey. Just under five million households were said to be in arrears on at least one household bill.“I know it is tough for many right now, but it is vital that we take the tough decisions needed to tackle inflation — the No. 1 enemy that makes everyone poorer,” Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor of the Exchequer, said in a statement in response to the inflation data on Wednesday. “If we make the wrong choices now, high prices will persist and prolong the pain for millions.”This tough stance comes as government ministers have been embroiled in debates with unions over improving pay offers following a long history of below-inflation wages. Recently a large gulf has opened up between pay growth in the private and public sectors. Before accounting for inflation, private-sector pay rose at an annual rate of 6.9 percent in the three months to October, but just 2.7 percent for workers in the public sector, data published on Tuesday showed.Pat Cullen, the chief executive of the Royal College of Nurses, the union whose members will go on strike on Thursday and again next week, accused the government of “belligerence” as talks broke down. More

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    Federal Reserve Expected to Slow Rate Increases and Offer Hints at Future

    Central bankers are still fighting inflation, but are poised to slow to a rate increase of half a percentage point at their final meeting of 2022.Federal Reserve officials appear poised to finish the most inflationary year since the 1980s on an optimistic note: They are expected to slow their campaign to cool the economy at their meeting on Wednesday, just as incoming data offer reasons to hope that price increases will fade next year.Central bankers are expected to lift interest rates by half a percentage point to a range of 4.25 to 4.5 percent. That would be a slowdown from their past four meetings, where they raised rates in three-quarter-point increments.Officials will also release a fresh set of economic projections, their first since September, which will offer a glimpse at how high they expect rates to rise in 2023 and how long they plan to hold them there.Fed policymakers have lifted borrowing costs at the fastest pace in decades this year to slow demand in the economy, hoping to tamp down inflationary pressures and prevent rapid increases from becoming a permanent feature of the American economy. While inflation is now showing signs of slowing, it remains much faster than usual, and central bankers have made clear that they have more work to do in ensuring that it returns to normal.But policy changes take time to fully play out, and the Fed wants to avoid accidentally squeezing demand so much that the economy contracts more than is necessary to wrangle inflation. That is why officials are moving away from super-rapid price increases and into a new phase where they focus on how high interest rates will rise and, perhaps even more critically, how long they will stay elevated.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 5What is inflation? More

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    UK inflation falls from 41-year high as fuel price surge eases

    Brexit has added more than £200 to the average U.K. household food bill, according to a new study from the London School of Economics.
    Nathan Stirk | Getty Images News | Getty Images

    LONDON — U.K. inflation came in slightly below expectations at 10.7% in November, as cooling fuel prices helped ease price pressures, though high food and energy prices continued to squeeze households and businesses.
    Economists polled by Reuters had projected an annual increase in the consumer price index of 10.9% in November, after October saw an unexpected climb to a 41-year high of 11.1%. On a monthly basis, the November increase was 0.4%, down from 2% in October and below a consensus estimate of 0.6%.

    The Office for National Statistics said the largest upward contributions came from “housing and household services (principally from electricity, gas, and other fuels), and food and non-alcoholic beverages.”
    The largest downward contributions over the month came from “transport, particularly motor fuels, with rising prices in restaurants, cafes and pubs making the largest, partially offsetting, upward contribution.”
    The Bank of England will announce its next monetary policy move on Thursday. It is widely expected to raise interest rates by 50 basis points, as it juggles sky-high inflation and an economy that policymakers say is already in its longest recession on record.
    The country faces widespread industrial action over the Christmas period, as workers strike to demand pay rises closer to the rate of inflation and better working conditions.
    The independent Office for Budget Responsibility projected that the U.K. will suffer its largest fall in living standards since records began, as real household income is expected to decline by 4.3% in 2022-23.

    U.K. Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt last month announced a sweeping £55 billion ($68 billion) fiscal plan, including a slew of tax rises and spending cuts, in an attempt to plug a substantial hole in the country’s public finances.
    A positive step, but risks remain
    While the dip in Wednesday’s figures is a step in the right direction, the persistent problem of rising food prices and household energy bills remains a thorn in the side of the British economy, noted Richard Carter, head of fixed interest research at Quilter Cheviot.
    However, Carter suggested inflation may finally be passing its peak, after the U.S. also posted a better-than-expected CPI print on Tuesday.
    “Temperatures have taken a sharp dive in the last week or so, and the demand for gas will no doubt have increased as people are forced to heat their homes,” Carter added.
    “As the autumn had been rather mild, we will only now begin to see the real impact of higher energy bills. While the government support remains in place for now, any changes made once the April deadline is reached could have a knock-on effect on inflation.”
    The Bank of England faces a tricky task in trying to drag inflation back towards its 2% target while remaining cognizant of a weakening economy. This was evident in the latest U.K. labor market data earlier this week, which showed an uptick in both unemployment and wage growth.
    “While inflation is falling, it remains well ahead of wages, and we are heading into a new winter of discontent with strikes concentrated in the unionised public sector and former nationalised industries as a result,” Carter said.
    The market is pricing a 50 basis point interest rate hike from the Bank on Thursday, taking the benchmark rate to 3.5%. Policymakers have signaled a potential slowing of the pace of hikes in 2023. However, inflation remains well above target.
    “The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement in November helped to settle the waters following months of significant turbulence, but inflation remains far above the Bank’s 2% target, which means there is still a long way to go yet,” Carter said.
    “A rapid fall in inflation is highly unlikely, but it is positive to see it finally moving in the right direction.”
    This is a breaking news story, please check back later for more.

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    Inflation Cooled Notably in November, Good News for the Fed

    Inflation slowed more sharply than expected in November, an encouraging sign for both Federal Reserve officials and consumers that 18 months of rapid and unrelenting price increases are beginning to meaningfully abate.The new data is unlikely to alter the Fed’s plan to raise interest rates by another half point at the conclusion of its two-day meeting on Wednesday. But the moderation in inflation, which affected used cars, some types of food and airline tickets, caused investors to speculate that the Fed could pursue a less aggressive policy path next year — potentially increasing the chances of a “soft landing,” or one in which the economy slows gradually and without a painful recession.Stock prices jumped sharply higher after government data showed that inflation eased to 7.1 percent in the year through November, down from 7.7 percent in the previous reading and less than economists had expected.The Fed, which has been rapidly raising rates in three-quarter point increments, is expected to make a smaller move on Wednesday, bringing rates to a range between 4.25 and 4.5 percent. Central bankers will also release economic projections showing how much they expect to raise interest rates next year, and investors are now betting that they will slow to quarter-point adjustments by their February meeting as fading price pressures give them latitude to proceed more cautiously.“The overall picture is definitely improving,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. “It’s unambiguously good news, but it would not be fair to say that inflation is falling everywhere — there are still pockets of big increases.”While price increases are not yet slowing across the board, they are moderating for key goods and services that consumers buy every day, including gas and meat. That is good news for President Biden, who has struggled to convince Americans that the economy is strong as the surging cost of living erodes voter confidence.“Inflation is coming down in America,” Mr. Biden said during remarks at the White House on Tuesday morning. He hailed the report as “news that provides some optimism for the holiday season, and I would argue, the year ahead.”Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 5What is inflation? More

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    Consumer prices rose less than expected in November, up 7.1% from a year ago

    The consumer price index rose just 0.1% from the previous month, and increased 7.1% from a year ago, compared with respective estimates of 0.3% and 7.3%.
    Core CPI rose 0.2% on the month and 6% on an annual basis, compared with respective estimates of 0.3% and 6.1%.
    Stocks roared higher following the report as investors look for signs that runaway inflation is ebbing.
    Inflation-adjusted average hourly earnings for workers rose 0.5% for the month, though they were still down 1.9% from a year ago.

    Prices rose less than expected in November, the latest sign that the runaway inflation that has been gripping the economy is beginning to loosen up.
    The consumer price index, which measures a wide basket of goods and services, rose just 0.1% from the previous month, and increased 7.1% from a year ago, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting a 0.3% monthly increase and a 7.3% 12-month rate.

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    The increase from a year ago, while well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target for a healthy inflation level, was tied for the lowest since November 2021.
    Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core CPI rose 0.2% on the month and 6% on an annual basis, compared with respective estimates of 0.3% and 6.1%.

    Stocks initially roared higher following the report, with futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average up more than 800 points initially before easing a bit. However, the rally lost much of its steam through the session, and the Dow was up just 50 points or so near 2:30 p.m. ET.
    “Cooling inflation will boost the markets and take pressure off the Fed for raising rates, but most importantly this spells real relief starting for Americans whose finances have been punished by higher prices,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist with Navy Federal Credit Union. “This is especially true for lower-income Americans who are disproportionately hurt by inflation.”
    Falling energy prices helped keep inflation at bay. The energy index declined 1.6% for the month, due in part to a 2% decrease in gasoline. Food prices, however, rose 0.5% and were up 10.6% from a year ago. Even with its monthly decline, the energy index was higher by 13.1% from November 2021.

    Shelter costs, which make up about one-third of CPI weighting, continued to escalate, rising 0.6% on the month and now up 7.1% on an annual basis.
    The easing of inflation pressures helped give workers a lift after months of seeing wage increases fall well short of inflation. Real average hourly earnings rose 0.5% for the month, though they were still down 1.9% from a year ago.

    The CPI report comes the same day the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee begins its two-day meeting. Markets widely expect the FOMC on Wednesday to announce a 0.5 percentage point rate increase, regardless of Tuesday’s CPI reading.
    “The Fed could dismiss the better-than-expected October as just one month’s data, but the further slowdown in November makes this new disinflationary trend harder to dismiss,” Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist for Capital Economics, wrote in a post-CPI note titled, “Stick a fork in it, inflation is done.”
    Inflation spiked in spring 2021, the result of converging factors that took price increases to their highest levels since the stagflation days of the early 1980s. Among the main aggravating circumstances were a supply and demand imbalance brought on by the pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the impact on energy prices, and trillions of dollars in fiscal and monetary stimulus that sent an abundance of money chasing too few goods that were caught up in supply chain problems.
    Used vehicle prices, which had been a major contributor to the initial inflation burst, fell 2.9% for the month and are now down 3.3% from a year ago. As recently as February, the used cars and trucks index was up more than 40% on an annual basis, the result of higher demand as a microchip shortage caused a backlog in new car production.
    Medical care services costs also declined 0.7% on a monthly basis and were up 4.4% annually.
    Headline CPI peaked around 9% in June 2022 and has been on a slow but steady decline since.
    After spending months dismissing the inflation surge as “transitory,” Federal Reserve officials began raising interest rates in March. The central bank has boosted its short-term borrowing rate six times in all, pushing the benchmark up to a targeted range of 3.75%-4%.
    Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said recently that an important component in determining future monetary policy moves will be looking at services inflation excluding shelter costs. That gauge was little changed in November but is up nearly 7.3% from a year ago.

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    Sam Bankman-Fried’s Parents Under Scrutiny in FTX Collapse

    The FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s mother and father, who teach at Stanford Law School, are under scrutiny for their connections to their son’s crypto business.At the height of its corporate power, the cryptocurrency exchange FTX convened a group of athletes and celebrities for a charity event in March at the Miami Heat’s N.B.A. arena. Local high school students competed for more than $1 million in prizes, pitching “Shark Tank”-style business ideas to a panel of judges that included David Ortiz, the former Boston Red Sox slugger, and Kevin O’Leary, an actual “Shark Tank” host.But the event’s organizer was a figure better known in academic circles — Joseph Bankman, a longtime tax professor at Stanford Law School and the father of Sam Bankman-Fried, the now-disgraced founder of FTX.Wearing a baseball cap with FTX’s logo, Mr. Bankman walked onstage to help announce the winners of two $500,000 checks. Behind the scenes, he played the role of FTX diplomat, introducing his son to the head of a Florida nonprofit organization that was helping adults in the area set up bank accounts linked to the crypto exchange’s platform. Two months later, Mr. Bankman-Fried promoted the partnership in testimony to Congress, where he was pushing crypto-friendly legislation.In the months before FTX filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, Mr. Bankman was a prominent cheerleader for the company, helping to shape the narrative that his son was using crypto to save the world by donating to charity and giving low-income people access to the financial system.He and his wife, the Stanford Law professor Barbara Fried, were more than just supportive parents backing their child’s business. Mr. Bankman was a paid FTX employee who traveled frequently to the Bahamas, where the exchange was based. Ms. Fried did not work for the company, but her son was among the donors in a political advocacy network that she orchestrated.Now Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried are under scrutiny for their connections to a business that collapsed amid accusations of fraud and misuse of customer funds. No evidence has emerged linking them to the potentially criminal practices that caused the exchange to implode. But their son was arrested on Monday in the Bahamas after U.S. prosecutors filed criminal charges against him, and his fortune has dwindled to almost nothing. The charitable work that Mr. Bankman spearheaded has largely collapsed.The couple’s careers have been upended. Ms. Fried, 71, resigned last month as chairwoman of the board of a political donor network, Mind the Gap, which she had helped start to support Democratic campaigns and causes. Mr. Bankman, 67, has postponed a Stanford class he had been scheduled to teach in the winter, and he’s recruited a white-collar criminal defense lawyer to represent him. The family faces huge legal bills, and they have become the subject of gossip on Stanford’s campus.“I had a friend who said, ‘You don’t want to be seen with them,’” said Larry Kramer, a former dean of the law school and a close friend of the Bankman-Fried family. “I don’t see how this doesn’t bankrupt them.”In a statement, Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for the couple, said that Mr. Bankman worked for FTX for 11 months but that Ms. Fried had no role in the company. “Joe has spent a lot of his life trying to figure out ways to lift people up out of poverty,” Ms. Heller said. “Most of his time was spent identifying worthy health-related charities.”Mr. Bankman-Fried, 30, said in an interview that his parents “weren’t involved in any of the relevant parts” of the business. “None of them were involved in FTX balances or risk management or anything like that,” he said.Mr. Bankman-Fried said in an interview that his parents “weren’t involved in any of the relevant parts” of the business.Stefani Reynolds/BloombergLong before their son became a billionaire celebrity, Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried were popular faculty members at Stanford, where they have taught since the late 1980s. At their home on campus, they regularly hosted Sunday dinners with friends and colleagues, which multiple attendees compared to a modern salon.A leading taxation expert, Mr. Bankman has been an outspoken advocate for simplifying the tax filing system and has testified in Congress on tax matters. He also has a degree in clinical psychology and practices as a therapist.The Aftermath of FTX’s DownfallThe sudden collapse of the crypto exchange has left the industry stunned.A Spectacular Rise and Fall: Who is Sam Bankman-Fried and how did he become the face of crypto? The Daily charted the spectacular rise and fall of the man behind FTX.Market Manipulation Inquiry: Federal prosecutors are said to be investigating whether Mr. Bankman-Fried manipulated the market for two cryptocurrencies, leading to their collapse.Congressional Testimony: The FTX founder said on Twitter that he would appear before a House committee, but he was quiet about a similar request from a Senate committee. Frantic Exchanges: Texts from a group chat that included crypto leaders from rival companies showed the chief executive of Binance, another crypto exchange, accusing Mr. Bankman-Fried of orchestrating trades to destabilize the industry.Ms. Fried, who retired this year, is an expert on the intersection of law and philosophy, and has written about effective altruism, the charitable movement embraced by Mr. Bankman-Fried that uses data to maximize the benefits of donations. In 2018, she helped start Mind the Gap, hoping to bring “Moneyball”-style analytics to political spending, people familiar with her role in the group said.The couple’s lives transformed after Mr. Bankman-Fried started FTX in 2019. He grew the company into a $32 billion business, cultivating a reputation as a hard-working do-gooder who barely slept and intended to donate his fortune to causes backed by the effective altruist movement.Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried supported their son’s work, though Ms. Fried expressed concerns about his lifestyle. “The sleep worries me,” she said in an interview with The New York Times in May. “I just hope that it’s not exacting a high price on him.”Mr. Bankman-Fried’s business and political empire was always a family affair. The FTX founder was a prolific political donor, and he was part of a network of contributors who gave money to groups recommended by Mind the Gap, people familiar with the organization said. He also helped bankroll a nonprofit organization called Guarding Against Pandemics that was run by his 27-year-old brother, Gabe Bankman-Fried.Mr. Bankman was deeply involved in FTX. In its early days, he helped the company recruit its first lawyers. Last year, he joined FTX staff in meetings on Capitol Hill and advised his son as Mr. Bankman-Fried prepared to testify to the House Financial Services Committee, a person familiar with the matter said. FTX employees occasionally consulted him on tax-related matters, the person said.“From the start whenever I was useful, I’d lend a hand,” Mr. Bankman said on an FTX podcast in August.Mr. Bankman visited the FTX offices in the Bahamas as often as once a month, a person who saw him there said. Among the much-younger staff, he cultivated an avuncular persona, regaling employees with stories from his son’s youth, the person said. He and Ms. Fried stayed in a $16.4 million house in Old Fort Bay, a gated community in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas; the couple’s names appear on real estate documents, according to Reuters, though Mr. Bankman-Fried has said the house was “intended to be the company’s property.”Ms. Heller, the couple’s spokeswoman, said Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried “never intended to and never believed they had any beneficial or economic ownership in the house.”As an employee, Mr. Bankman focused on FTX’s charitable operations. He put together the Miami event, selecting the teams of high school students who competed for $1 million in FTX grants. Mr. Bankman also leveraged family connections to expand FTX’s reach. His sister, Barbara Miller, works in Florida as a political consultant and introduced him to Newton Sanon, the chief executive of OIC of South Florida, a nonprofit organization that helps people with work force development training to promote economic mobility. (Ms. Miller did not respond to a request for comment.)Mr. Sanon worked with Mr. Bankman on a financial literacy initiative for low-to-moderate-income adults enrolled in education programs. As part of the collaboration, students who did not have bank accounts could open one linked to FTX’s platform, giving them the option to spend their money on cryptocurrency. Nobody was pushed to buy digital currencies through FTX, Mr. Sanon said, but one participant chose to do so.In Washington, Mr. Bankman-Fried invoked the Florida program as he pressed for legislation to make the United States more hospitable to the crypto industry, testifying to a House committee that the initiative would help low-income people “build savings.”After FTX collapsed, however, Mr. Sanon informed Mr. Bankman that some participants in the FTX initiative may have lost funds they had stored on the platform (including money students had received as a stipend for joining the program).“They wired money in for us to be able to take care of students,” Mr. Sanon said. He declined to specify the amount that the organization received, but he said it was “substantial and very kind.”Mr. Bankman used his personal funds to cover the losses, according to his spokeswoman. Mr. Sanon said that “none of us are happy with how this played out,” but that “those folks were very good to us.”Not all of Mr. Bankman’s partners were so lucky. On Nov. 11, the day that FTX filed for bankruptcy, Mr. Bankman wrote to a Chicago nonprofit that had been promised $600,000 by FTX’s charitable arm. The money wasn’t going to materialize, Mr. Bankman explained, and he couldn’t afford to make up for the shortfall himself.“I’ll be spending substantially all of my resources on Sam’s defense,” he wrote in an email, which was obtained by The Times.Mr. Bankman-Fried’s whole family has felt the effects of his actions. Gabe Bankman-Fried resigned from Guarding Against Pandemics in November. (He did not respond to requests for comment.) Ms. Fried stepped down from Mind the Gap, which held a meeting last month to elect an interim chair and discuss how to proceed without her, people familiar with the matter said. The stress of the situation is exacting a toll: Mr. Bankman looks as if he’s aged 10 years in one month, a friend said.Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried are part of a small group offering Mr. Bankman-Fried legal advice, according to a person familiar with the matter. The couple has also turned to the Stanford faculty for support: David Mills, a criminal law professor at Stanford and a close family friend, is part of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s legal team. Mr. Bankman has his own lawyer, the former federal prosecutor Ronald G. White.Colleagues and family acquaintances are wrestling with what to say the next time they run into Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried. Their son has widely been compared to Bernie Madoff, the notorious fraudster who ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history.Still, many people in the family’s social circle view the situation through a sympathetic lens, according to interviews with more than a dozen friends and colleagues. They insist that Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried couldn’t have known about any wrongdoing at FTX, while acknowledging that Mr. Bankman may have been naïve in his embrace of crypto.“It’s like a Greek tragedy,” said John Donohue, a colleague who has attended Sunday dinners at the Bankman-Fried home. “The story of flying too close to the sun, and having your wings singed.”Emily Flitter More

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    Inflation Forecasts Were Wrong Last Year. Should We Believe Them Now?

    Economists misjudged how much staying power inflation would have. Next year could be better — but there’s ample room for humility.At this time last year, economists were predicting that inflation would swiftly fade in 2022 as supply chain issues cleared, consumers shifted from goods to services spending and pandemic relief waned. They are now forecasting the same thing for 2023, citing many of the same reasons.But as consumers know, predictions of a big inflation moderation this year were wrong. While price increases have started to slow slightly, they are still hovering near four-decade highs. Economists expect fresh data scheduled for release on Tuesday to show that the Consumer Price Index climbed by 7.3 percent in the year through November. That raises the question: Should America believe this round of inflation optimism?“There is better reason to believe that inflation will fall this year than last year,” said Jason Furman, an economist from Harvard who was skeptical of last year’s forecasts for a quick return to normal. Still, “if you pocket all the good news and ignore the countervailing bad news, that’s a mistake.”Economists are slightly less optimistic than last year.Economists see inflation fading notably in the months ahead, but after a year of foiled expectations, they aren’t penciling in quite as drastic a decline as they were last December.The Fed officially targets the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, which is related to the consumer price measure. Officials particularly watch a version of the number that illustrates underlying inflation trends by stripping out volatile food and fuel prices — so those forecasts give the best snapshot of what experts are anticipating.Last year, economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected that so-called core index to fall to 2.5 percent by the end of 2022. Instead, it is running at 5 percent, twice that pace.This year, forecasters expect inflation to fade to 3 percent by the end of 2023.The Federal Reserve’s predictions have followed a similar pattern. As of last December, central bankers expected core inflation to end 2022 at 2.7 percent. Their September projections showed price increases easing to 3.1 percent by the end of next year. Fed officials will release a new set of inflation forecasts for 2023 on Wednesday following their December policy meeting.Supply chains are healing.A worker at a garment factory in Vernon, Calif.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesOne reason to think that the anticipated but elusive inflation slowdown will finally show up in 2023 ties back to supply chains.At this time last year, economists were hopeful that snarls in global shipping and manufacturing would soon clear; consumer spending would shift away from goods and back to services; and the combination would allow supply and demand to come back into balance, slowing price increases on everything from cars to couches. That has happened, but only gradually. It has also taken longer to translate into lower consumer prices than some economists had expected.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 5What is inflation? More

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    Consumers see inflation easing considerably in the next year, New York Fed survey shows

    Shoppers carry bags of purchased merchandise at the King of Prussia Mall on December 11, 2022 in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
    Mark Makela | Getty Images

    Consumers grew more optimistic about inflation in November amid expectations that both food and energy price increases would be less severe in the coming year, according to a New York Federal Reserve survey released Monday.
    The central bank’s Survey of Consumer Expectations indicated that respondents see one-year inflation running at a 5.2% pace, down 0.7 percentage point from the October reading.

    That’s the lowest level for that reading since August 2021 — the early days of the inflation surge that has gripped the economy and pushed the Fed into a series of aggressive interest rate hikes that is likely to continue this week. The most recent annual inflation rate as gauged by the consumer price index was 7.7% in October.
    In addition to the brightened short-term outlook, the inflation-rate projection for three years from now edged lower to 3%, down 0.1 percentage point from the previous month. A relatively new data series reflecting the five-year outlook declined by the same level, to 2.3%.

    The survey comes as Fed officials have indicated the likelihood of a 0.5 percentage point interest rate hike coming this week when policymakers conclude their two-day meeting Wednesday. If that happens, it would be the seventh rate increase of the year, taking the Fed’s benchmark short-term borrowing rate to a targeted range between 4.25%-4.5%, the highest in 15 years.
    However, the inflation news has gotten at least modestly better in recent days, a trend that would be reflected in post-meeting communications from the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee and Chairman Jerome Powell.
    Respondents to the New York Fed survey said they see gas prices rising 4.7% and food up 8.3% in the year ahead. While those increases are still not consistent with an economy where inflation is running at the Fed’s 2% target rate, they are respective decreases of 0.6 percentage point and 0.8 percentage point from the previous month.

    The survey also indicated that wages are expected to grow 2.8% for the 12-month period, a 0.2 percentage point monthly decline and tied for the lowest level also going back to August 2021.
    However, household income is projected to grow 4.5%, with the 0.2 percentage point monthly increase taking the outlook to its highest level ever in a data series that goes back to June 2013.
    The unemployment outlook actually brightened, with 42.2% of respondents saying they think the jobless rate will be higher a year from now. The 0.7 percentage point decline came even though Fed officials have said they expect their efforts to slow the economy will hurt the labor market, which currently boasts a 3.7% unemployment rate.
    Also, worker expectations of being able to find a job in case of losing their current position rose to 58.2%, the highest level since February 2020, just before the Covid pandemic hit in full force.
    The next key inflation reading comes Tuesday with the Labor Department’s consumer price index for November. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect the report to show a 0.2% monthly increase and a 7.3% annual rise. Excluding food and energy, the respective forecasts for core CPI are for 0.4% and 6.1%.

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