Marketplace When is inflation no longer "transitory?"
27 snips
May 12, 2026 
Professor Azumar Ozdagar, deputy dean at MIT focused on AI education and its societal impact. April Hemmes, Iowa corn and soybean farmer navigating rising input costs and trade uncertainty. Kristen Schwab, reporter breaking down inflation and its causes. They discuss CPI numbers, whether repeated shocks make inflation persistent, farm economics, and how AI training ties into changing job markets.
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Stacked Shocks Turn Transitory Into Persistent
- Inflation labeled 'transitory' can stack: successive shocks (tariffs, pandemic, war) make a single short-lived explanation less convincing.
- Kristen Schwab highlights that repeated events raise consumer expectations, which can itself drive persistent inflation if people start to assume rising prices are normal.
Energy Shock Could Become Broader Inflation
- A singular event like the war with Iran can cause an energy-price spike that is theoretically temporary if the conflict ends quickly.
- Sean Snaith and Gary Schlossberg note that if higher oil and gas persist into fall, businesses may raise prices, making inflation harder to tame.
Iowa Farmer Shares Pain From Rising Input Costs
- April Hemmes describes input cost pressures on Iowa farmers, citing fertilizer up 30% last year and another potential 30% this year.
- She reports farmers selling land or equipment to cover costs and some near-retirement farmers opting to stop rather than deplete savings.