February 13, 2026· 57 min

Why Adam Posen Thinks Inflation Will Surge Back to 4%

Speaker Breakdown

HostTracy Alloway(1,052 words)
M:
HostJoe Weisenthal(1,670 words)
M:

Oral Indicators

Agonistic34%
huge, absolutely, totally
Engagement63%
you, your, i'm
Memory Aids100%
so, right, now
Repetition100%
it's (84x), about (74x), like (74x)
Parallelism87%
So if you need a last minute p..., So have you heard the story ab..., And I'm Tracy Alloway....
Sound Patterns90%
97 question(s), alliteration: "when work", alliteration: "adobe acrobat"
Formulaic Phrases9%
you know what, i mean, the bottom line

Literate Indicators

Hedging10%
maybe, fairly, may
Passive Voice5%
be simplified, is called, be fooled
Abstract Nouns19%
management, business, presentation
Subordination8%
because, since, though
Sentence Length32%
Avg: 13.0 words/sentence
Word Complexity48%
management, business, empower
Academic Markers0%
Impersonal Style37%
675 personal pronouns found
Descriptive Style94%
luckily, automatically, family

Description

The future is always tough to predict, but generally when it comes to inflation, a lot of the debate is about how long it will take the Federal Reserve to get back to its 2% target. In other words, people generally agree on the direction, but disagree on the speed. But our guest on this episode violently disagrees with the consensus direction. Peterson Institute President Adam Posen thinks inflation will be back at 4% by the end of the year. He first unveiled his thesis in a piece co-written with Lazard's Peter Orszag last month. Posen argues that the lagged effect of tariffs, immigration, further fiscal easing, and declining Fed credibility will combine to cause prices to reaccelerate. In this conversation, we speak with Posen about his thesis, and why he thinks the reports of economic softening are mistaken. We also talk about the broader geopolitical landscape and whether Europe is ready to really change its relationship with the United States. More: A Very Non-Consensus Inflation Call  Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.