Should-Read: Reuters: Fed’s Harker Still Sees Two More Interest Rate Hikes in 2017

Should-Read: This is one of the iron laws of bureaucracy: Whenever an incumbent in an office appoints a chair of the search committee who then winds up getting the job, something has gone badly wrong—the process has been rigged to flatter the outgoing occupant, rather than to choose an appropriate successor.

In the first four months of 2017 the monthly changes in the core PCE chain inflation index have added up to 0.52%-points: an average of 0.13%-point per month.

If all twelve months of 2017 are to add up to the 2%/year core PCE chain inflation that is the Federal Reserve’s target, the remaining eight months of 2017 need to average 0.19%-points.

That’s average over the next eight months—not kiss once or twice.

The economic world is a surprising place: it could happen. But I see nothing in the data or in any underlying economic relationships—no chain of logical reasoning—that would lead anybody to truthfully say that they anticipate that 0.19%-point will be the average monthly PCE core chain inflation rate reported over the next eight monthly releases.

Yet that is what Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Parker is currently claiming:

Reuters: Fed’s Harker Still Sees Two More Interest Rate Hikes in 2017: “Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Patrick Harker said on Friday that the U.S. central bank remains on track… https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/06/02/business/02reuters-usa-fed-harker.html

…to meet its inflation goal… reiterated his support for a further two interest rate increases this year. “Turning to inflation, things are still on track, despite a couple of months trending in the wrong direction,” Harker said… add[ing] that he still forecasts inflation reaching the Fed’s 2 percent target around the end of this year…

Is this professional? Is this arithmetic?