Sacks predicted that the Biden administration’s 2021 fiscal/monetary agenda would “backfire massively,” undermining the post‑COVID boom via inflation, higher rates, and weaker growth, in a way comparable to the Carter‑era economic disappointment.

What actually happened over the next few years:

1. Growth and jobs remained strong (boom not derailed)

   • Real U.S. GDP grew about 6.1% in 2021, 2.5% in 2022, 2.9% in 2023, and 2.8% in 2024—a solid expansion after the COVID recession and stronger than many other advanced economies. (trendonify.com)
   • Unemployment fell from a 14.8% peak in April 2020 back to 3.5% by July 2022, and was still only about 4.1–4.2% in late 2024, historically low by U.S. standards. (bls.gov)
   • Analyses by outlets like the IMF, major newspapers, and think tanks describe the U.S. as achieving something close to a “soft landing,” with the U.S. economy significantly outperforming Europe and most G7 peers in the recovery. (meetings.imf.org)
     These outcomes are inconsistent with a “massive” backfire that seriously undercut the boom.

2. Inflation and interest rates did spike—partly due to fiscal policy—but then came back down

   • CPI inflation did climb sharply: about 4.7% in 2021, 8.0% in 2022, then fell to ~4.1% in 2023 and ~3% in 2024–25. (bls.gov)
   • The Fed responded with aggressive rate hikes, taking policy rates from near zero in 2021 to restrictive levels above 5% by 2023–24 (widely documented in Fed commentary and media).
   • Mainstream assessments find the American Rescue Plan and related fiscal support did contribute meaningfully to the inflation spike—often estimated at about 2–4 percentage points of extra inflation in 2021–22—but also emphasize that it accelerated growth and the jobs recovery and that global supply shocks were major drivers as well. (politifact.com)
     So there was some “backfire” in the narrow sense of higher inflation and rates, but this did not translate into a broad macroeconomic bust.

3. Outcome was not comparable to the Carter‑era stagflation

   • During the late 1970s/early 1980s, U.S. inflation averaged around 7–9% with peaks above 13%, unemployment ran much higher, and interest rates and the “misery index” (inflation + unemployment) hit record levels near 22. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • By contrast, in 2023–24 U.S. inflation had fallen back to roughly 3–4%, unemployment hovered around 3.7–4.2%, and real GDP growth remained positive—conditions that economists explicitly describe as not comparable to 1970s stagflation. (econofact.org)

Because the core of Sacks’s prediction was not just that inflation and interest rates would rise, but that the Biden program would “backfire massively” by derailing the post‑COVID boom in a Carter‑like way, and the subsequent data instead show a strong (if bumpy) expansion with low unemployment, a soft‑landing–type outcome, and no 1970s‑style stagnation, the prediction is best judged as wrong overall. It got the inflation spike directionally right but overstated the scale and long‑run macro damage.