Two things: US inflation data and an ECB rate hike.

Those are this week’s marquee macro events. Who’s excited?! (“Anyone… anyone?”)

We all pretend to be interested in this stuff, but who among us actually is? Really excited, I mean? Earnestly stoked? (“Bueller? … Bueller?”)

Let’s pretend, though.

If Donald Trump’s intent on using his autocrat-like sway over America’s purged bureaucracy to flatter the data, Wednesday’s BLS release would be a good place to start.

From here, upside inflation prints have the potential to make Kevin Warsh’s rate-cutting mandate mission impossible. And unless the monthly all-items CPI gauge miraculously slows to a ~0.2% pace between now and November, voters — the ones who still bother with participatory democracy anyway — will be staring at four- or five-handle headline inflation when they go to the ballot box for the mid-terms.

Consensus expects 4.2% from the headline YoY CPI print this week. If that readout overshoots even by a little, it’ll mean US inflation’s higher than the unemployment rate. As noted here, that tends to be a bad omen.

At the same time, the higher inflation goes without Fed hikes, the lower the real policy rate, both in absolute terms and relative to guesstimates of r-star.

Those concerns are playing havoc with Fed expectations. The barnburner May jobs report underscored the majority opinion on the FOMC (see the April meeting minutes) that upside inflation risks are a much bigger concern than downside risks to the labor market. And hawkish Fed bets are now disrupting the melt-up on Wall Street, where big-tech stocks are coming off their worst day in a year.

Of course, the key to weathering high inflation is to be rich enough that your expenditures on food and energy don’t comprise a meaningful share of your monthly outlays. That way, when the cost of driving, cooling, heating and eating accelerates, you don’t notice it.

Simple as it is, that inflation “hack” consistently eludes poor people. As a group, the impecunious just don’t seem to grasp that the solution to the problem of being broke is to be rich. (What can you do, right? You can lead a horse to water. After that, it’s on the horse.)

Core inflation — so, inflation that matters to the very well-off and Fed officials, categories of people that aren’t mutually exclusive — is seen rising a relatively modest 0.3% in Wednesday’s CPI report. That’s still far quicker than the monthly pace needed to achieve a 2% annual underlying pace, but who’s counting?

On a YoY basis, core CPI probably rose 2.9% in May, economists reckon. That’s nearly a full percentage point too high, but technocratic credibility went out the window a long time ago, so who cares?

Speaking of technocrats and the futile quest to reclaim and retain lost credibility, European policymakers will almost surely raise rates on Thursday, when new staff forecasts should reflect higher expectations for euro-zone inflation.

Headline inflation was 3.2% in Europe last month, according to Eurostat’s flash estimate. Core was 2.5%. The energy gauge rose nearly 11% for the second straight month.

Rates have been on hold at the ECB since last summer. Needless to say, the bank isn’t enamored with this situation: It marks the second time this decade that someone else’s war of aggression triggered an energy supply shock to the detriment of price stability across the bloc.

Markets have fully priced two hikes from the ECB for the remainder of the year, with pretty decent odds of a third.

With the caveat that the Fed operates on a dual mandate versus single, inflation-focused mandates in other locales, an FOMC that fails to respond to a persistent inflation overshoot will look like the odd man out. Particularly given robust US hiring. Warsh, you’re reminded, used to be a hawk. And no one wants a repeat of “transitory.”

Also on the US macro docket this week: PPI figures for May (which’ll be eyed very closely for evidence that PCE inflation’s likely to print warm later this month) and the first read on University of Michigan sentiment for June. The Michigan headline and its subcomponents all printed record lows last month. Surely they can’t get worse. Right?