Sentinel
Do They Mean What They Say? — 01. Two percent, the engine, Clarkson
The Fed named 2 percent. Clarkson’s headlines said conversion. The verbs did not.
This is a lecture about the Fed naming 2 percent, the Sentinel overlay, and Jeremy Clarkson — studied academically. Episode 01 of Do They Mean What They Say?
Two percent
The popular sentence is that the Fed is getting inflation back to 2 percent. That's the number they named.
Two percent, over the longer run, on PCE. Not a mood. A target they chose, in public, in the statements.
Last four years of monthly prints. Headline 12-month PCE never printed 2.0. Closest was 2.3. Core never fell below 2.6. Then it turned back up.
You can be committed in the verbs and miss in the print. That's a different question from whether they meant 2 percent.
The Index: blackhorsesentinel.com/fed-drift
Clarkson and the engine
The Fed Drift Engine scores public language. Not whether you like the person. Whether the verbs bound them to something.
The popular sentence is that Clarkson used to deny global warming, then he believed it. That's a headline. Headlines are adjectives. I want the verbs.
2005, as reported: the world is warming up, and it isn't even worthy of a shrug. Observation. Nobody has to do anything.
2019: alarming, genuinely alarming — then the same week, possibly. Who knows. The papers said he converted. The engine did not.
2024, on the farm: the shrug was a joke. Science will solve it eventually. Will is a bind, aimed at science, not at him.
You can't tell from a headline if he meant it. You can tell if the English left him an out.