Last week, I pointed out that inflation is astronomically high all over the place, especially in countries whose economies run similar to ours. Japan’s, for example, is currently over 2,000% higher than it was in 2020. By comparison, the US over the same period is 600% higher.

But that doesn’t seem to matter, I continue to be lectured on the myriad ways that the Biden administration’s alleged fumblings are ruining the US economy, and far beyond.

To my friends who believe this, I’d like to point out two very important points.

Aversion to Majority Opinion

First, I’m not an economist, neither are you.

So, let’s not query our trusted media outlets, do a little armchair math, throw in a little plebian philosophy, and convince ourselves that we’ve considered the political hot topics from every conceivable angle.

Instead, let’s ask the people who are qualified, folks who hold PhD’s in economics, thinkers spawned from well-heeled academic institutions who’ve spent the brunt of their lives learning how this all works. In addition, we should consider the opinions of chief economics officers who work their craft in very large organizations, folks who get fired if they get it wrong.

This group knows more than we do. Should they pen an opinion about inflation, we should listen.

Go figure, there are qualified folks on both side of the fence, some claiming that the world’s current inflation woes are directly related to COVID aftershocks, supply chain issues, and Russia’s inflation of Ukraine.

You can also find opinions from the other side. Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, once claimed that inflation is the government’s way of robbing the people. My conservative friends are quick to use Dr. Sowell’s thoughts as a direct indictment of the Biden administration.

Which side has it right, liberals (and/or this blogger), who seek to place the majority of the blame on COVID/Putin/etc., or conservatives, who see Biden as the biggest part of the problem?

While you might be able to find a relative handful of qualified economists who’ll blame the current administration for US inflation, the vast majority of global economists don’t.

Please fact check me on this and share your data in the comments below. But if you believe that Joe Biden has singlehandedly driven the US into its current 8+% inflation rate, you’re not backed by the majority of qualified opinion.

We ran into this with COVID. Early on, the CDC posted its very high estimated death rate, then its advice on masks and social distancing, all hailed by one crowd as a conspiracy because there were a relative handful of qualified physicians (and many other unqualified ones) claiming that the CDC had it wrong.

Completely ignored by this crowd was the legion of qualified epidemiologists – globally, completely unrelated to the Trump administration’s medical team – posting reams of data about masks, social distancing, death rates, vaccines etc., all landing in close proximity to the CDC’s conclusions, supporting their policy.

The same holds true for today. Economists from many Ivy League institutions, and qualified folks who steer major corporations seem to be in concert with their conclusions about global inflation. Only a relative handful are posting “Let’s Go Brandon!” types of conclusions.

Following is a sampling of experts who’ve published their opinions. These have some interesting things to say about the world’s current inflation problem, but none of them claim that Biden is the root problem.

• • • Alan Greenspan, needs no introduction
    • Justin Wolfers, professor of economics and public policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics
    • Mansueto Almeida, Chief Financial Officer, Banco BTG
    • Pactual Shusong Ba, Managing Director and Chief China Economist ofHong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX), Chief Economist of the China Banking Association (CBA) and Executive Director of the HSBC Financial Research Institute at Peking University.
    • Rima Bhatia, Group Chief Economist, Gulf International Bank
    • Bricklin Dwyer, Chief economist and head of the Mastercard economics institute
    • David Folkerts-Landau, Chief economist, Deutsche Bank. Bachelors in Economics from Harvard University, PhD in Economics from Princeton University
    • Markus Konrad Brunnermeier, Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Economics, Princeton University
    • Jerome Haegeli, Group Chief Economist, Swiss Re Institute
    • Jonathan Hall, Chief Economist and Director of Public, Uber. PhD in Economics from Harvard University
    • Jason Furman, Harvard Kennedy School’s Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy
    • Ethan Harris, Bank of America
    • Francis Hintermann, Accenture
    • Fernando Honorato Barbosa, Banco Bradesco
    • Beata Javorcik, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
    • Nick Johnson, Deloitte
    • Christian Keller, Barclays
    • Razia Khan, Standard Chartered
    • Monika Piazzesi, SIEPR Senior Fellow and the Joan Kenny Professor of Economics at Stanford.
    • Karin Kimbrough, LinkedIn
    • Kyle Kretschman, Spotify
    • Millan Mulraine, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan
    • Charles L. Jones, Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
    • Debora Revoltella, European Investment Bank
    • Nela Richardson, ADP
    • Michael Schwarz, Microsoft
    • Jorge Sicilia, BBVA
    • Ludovic Subran, Allianz
    • Areef Suleman, Islamic Development Bank
    • Hal Varian, Google
    • Eirik Waerness, Equinor
    • Ghislaine Weder, Nestlé

Some from this list are quick to point out that Biden’s COVID relief attempts are certainly a contributing factor. But they’re just as quick to mention that the Trump administration attempted the same thing and spent much more. According to these experts, If Biden’s COVID measures contributed to inflation, so did Trump’s.

 

Again, when we ask the experts why inflation is so high, we’ll get opinions from both sides, but it’s not a 50/50 sort of proposition, not even a 30/70 one. The number of economists who lay the majority of the blame at Biden’s feet are few and far between.

If you want to go with minority opinion on this one, why? I’m fine if you do but help me understand your reasoning. If you can’t, I’ll assume that you’ve done what we all do: scour the earth for opinions and perspectives that make us right, and canonize them.

Divided Truth

The other point I’d like to make is that you and I are part of a tribe.

If you believe that Biden is ruining America, you’re most likely a conservative, white Christian who lives in the suburbs. Those aren’t bad things – I lived there for a huge chunk of my adult, Christian life – but they are indicators of a particular cross section of American culture that consistently lands on one distinct side of America’s current political divide.

If, on the other hand, you believe that US inflation is more a problem of non-Biden things, your tribe is a bit more diverse in the realms of religion and race, tends to live closer to urban areas, is much more liberal, and lands squarely on the other side of the divide.

Again, not a bad thing.

But when our tribe’s emotion and fear call the shots much more than wisdom does, that’s bad. When that happens, we’re suckers for whatever media outlet that seeks to make some $$ from telling us that we’re right and everyone else is wrong.

And so, added to our tribe’s propensity to leverage emotion at the expense of everything else, our media outlets carefully curate whatever data and leave us feeling good about our politics. Allegedly well informed, we take to social media and beyond with our very limited education, fighting with those who don’t think like we do, adding to America’s very serious division problem.

Because you and I are part of a tribe, and because both tribes have gotten way too emotional, we’re vulnerable, and run the risk of falling victim to tribal thinking, much more influenced by anger and fear than the facts.

In our current divided moment, it’s crucial that we query the minds of as many experts as we can, whether it be in the arena of economics, pandemics, race, whatever. Let’s not curate these voices by what conclusions they draw, let’s curate them based on their qualifications, then listen, considering the entire time that our tribe might be wrong on this one.