Interesting analysis, and I don't doubt the seasonal adjustment methodology is sound. But I'm genuinely curious about a few things you didn't address:

You’ve framed concern about Trump's Fed pressure as "overly emotional" but isn't the more interesting question whether markets being "basically agnostic" is a feature or a bug? Markets were agnostic about Turkey and China too, right up until they weren't. What's the actual threshold where institutional erosion starts to matter to markets?

Also, the January CPI data was collected during and after a 43-day government shutdown that forced BLS to use carry-forward methodology. Economists across the spectrum are flagging this as a likely downward bias in the numbers until spring. Why does that caveat not appear in this analysis?

And if services inflation has "returned to pre-pandemic levels" — why is the Fed's preferred measure (PCE) still running near 3%? Which signal should we trust, and why?

I'm not arguing inflation is overheating. I'm asking whether a benign reading built on incomplete data, which excludes the measure the Fed actually uses, is the right foundation for the confidence this piece projects.

And finally, I find it striking that nowhere in this piece do you mention the real harm of specific price increases that fall hardest on those with the least: utility gas up 10%, beef up 15%, coffee up 18%. Dismissing policy critics as emotional while quietly omitting the data that matters most to working families isn't analysis. It's a choice.