Earlier this week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made headlines when she expressed optimism that the Federal Reserve Board’s long hoped-for 2 percent inflation target might be achieved by 2025. The attention was understandable.

For one thing, when inflation reaches the target, we can expect lower interest rates and more economic normalcy. For another, at the time, the most recent readings on the all-item Consumer Price Index still showed May year-over-year inflation running 3.3 percent, and the index without food and energy hitting 3.4 percent. Since then, the Fed’s preferred inflation metric for May, the Personal Consumption Expenditure Index, showed 2.6 percent growth, unchanged for two months and running.

Still, the distance between 3.3 percent or 2.6 percent today and 2.0 percent just six months from now is large. Given Yellen’s many years of experience in the higher reaches of government and her strong reputation as an economic scholar, one has to wonder what’s going on.

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