Jason Furman: Inflation Figures ‘Obliterate’ Biden Administration’s Putinflation Theory

The Biden administration has sought to blame Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for high inflation, sometimes calling rising prices “Putin’s price hikes.”

The consumer price data for September released Wednesday “obliterate” the case that Putin is responsible for high core inflation, Harvard economist Jasaon Furman said in a tweet.

Furhman was the top economic adviser to the Obama White House.

Furman said the data also undermined the idea that inflation was rooted in transitory supply shocks.

Although Furman says the view was popular last year, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen linked the Putinflation and supply shock theory together as recently as this week.

In an interview with CNBC, Yellen attributed inflation to “a series of shocks that virtually no one could have predicted, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that have pushed up prices and a series of supply challenges that most people did not anticipate, including me.”

The supply shock and Putinflation claims would let the Federal Reserve and the Biden administration off the hook for the explosion of inflation. In reality, while the pandemic re-opening and supply shocks played a role in the early months of inflation moving higher last year, the Fed’s keeping interest rates too low and the Biden administration’s “rescue” stimulus bills overheated demand and excess demand became the principle forces driving prices higher.