NY Fed President John Williams today: "My forecast personally is for inflation to come down in ⁠the second half of this year and come down further next year." This is also Wall Street's inflation forecast. As this chart shows, Wall Street has had this exact inflation forecast for 64 straight months, and it has been wrong for 64 straight months. Question for Williams: why is thsi forecast suddenly going to go right now? What is about to change that is going to make this 0 for 64 forecast now correct? --- Explaining the chart The black line is the year-over-year change in core PCE. The colored lines are median results from roughly 70 Wall Street economists. Each color grouping is a different calendar year. This survey was conducted by Bloomberg. These economists forecast inflation for the next six quarters. Prior to COVID in 2020 (the shaded recession area), almost every forecast is ABOVE the black line, meaning every forecast was that in 18 months the inflation rate would be back at 2%. It never did. Since COVID (now six years ago), every inflation forecast has been BELOW the black line. Every forecast is that in 18 months the inflation rate will decline to 2%. For 64 months now (and counting), it has not come close to 2%, and now Core PCE has been trending higher for the last year and a half. Isn't this just another case of the basic definition of insanity: forecasting the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result?(Jim Bianco)