They love nothing better. It's a way for them to show off their superior understanding, flash their credentials, and dazzle others with the merit of their time and expense in schooling. It justifies their social standing and income. And it assures their jobs.

Where would we be without them? Wallowing in ignorance, no doubt.

The trouble is that very often the popular wisdom is correct whereas the intellectuals are wrong.

We've seen many examples of this recently with regard to inflation. It seems that most people think it is getting worse and going in the wrong direction. A recent poll of swing-state voters shows that 74 percent of people say exactly this.

By wrong direction, plain English means: prices are not going down but rather still going up faster than one would desire.

In fact, the commodities markets seem to agree. Look at the record gold and Bitcoin prices. Even the Federal Reserve is worried.

But the Wall Street Journal's (WSJ) Greg Ip explains that the notion that inflation is still bad and even worsening is "simply not true. I'm not stating an opinion. This isn't something on which reasonable people can disagree. If hard economic data count for anything, we can say unambiguously that inflation has moved in the right direction in the past year."

He goes on to explain that over 12 months, the pace at which inflation is worsening is getting worse at a slower pace than previously. This is what Ip calls moving in the right direction. You can tell yourself that as you put on less weight this month than last, but it would not be a good idea to confuse this with losing weight.

As for prices going down, Ip sniffly dismisses that idea: the price level "rarely goes down."

Oh.

And if someone asks how your diet is going, you can do the same and tell them with absolute certainty that actually losing weight is out of the question.