I think people get really hung up on the 'how' too and equating that to it, not 'thinking'.

You know 'how' humans come up with thoughts? It's surprising how many people think brains have some special capabilities to be creative masterpieces with every sentence, rather than meat sac computers than chuck out best guess words most of the time.

I don't this this is AGI, but an AGI could definitely come from this track.

If Dec CPI/PCE is good, they'll do 0.25 in Feb, if its bad they'll do 0.50. If its fantastic and the recession data is bad, theres an outside shot of a pause, but I find that an almost impossible scenario.

Then they have Jan/Feb data for the Mar meeting. Allowing them to either to 0, 0.25 or 0.50 depending on data. If you have 3 more good months if CPI and things like PPI are in the 30s, the feds going to have a hard time justifying a raise.

I think people misinterpret the feds hawkish talk for a promise that they'll destroy the economy to get inflation to 2% next week. What they need is the economy to know they aren't pivoting. Its signalling and for anyone playing the game its all they've ever done.

FAO food index is about 6 months lagging, fertiliser is lagging, both are on the way down so food should be following as should rents.

The big questions will continue to be services and energy, but i expect if you have 9 months of low CPI and the fed stays hawkish in the face of job losses, that happy little separation they enjoy from congress will get tested some more.

Heres an interesting thread about oil

https://mobile.twitter.com/BurggrabenH/status/1606459855170060288