and they call it the dismal science?

hell, this guy's optimism is unshakable.

“If American households are losing ground to inflation,” said Adam S. Posen, deputy director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, “and they can’t resort to automatic cost-of-living adjustments or union power, they’ll find some other way, through their demands on the political process and through their expectations.”

you know, if you don't have means to achieve actual leverage, your "expectations" will do just as well. Except of course they haven't: