A professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University says a CNBC economists survey that puts the chances of a recession at 52%, is lowballing it.

Blaming the Federal Reserve for its irresponsible monetary policy during the pandemic, Johns Hopkins Professor Steve Hanke tells CNBC the chances of a recession in the U.S. are now 80% or higher.

“They have really been searching for inflation and the causes of inflation in all the wrong places,” Hanke says. “They’re looking at everything under the sun—but the money supply.

“And, in fact, they’ve doubled and tripled down on the argument that money has no relationship to economic activity or a reliable relationship to economic activity and inflation,” Hanke continues.

The simple reason why the U.S. is suffering under a 40-year high inflation rate of 8.3% is that the Fed “exploded the money supply,” starting in 2020, at an “unprecedented rate” — with nary a plan on how to dial it back through classic economic theories as put forth by Milton Friedman and others, the professor says.

The Fed grew the money supply, which economists call M2, at a double-digit rate in each of the past three years, Hanke says.

Trying to clean this mess up has created a “noose around their neck,” he maintains.

Now, M2 is growing too slowly, possibly even poised to contract — and that could tip the economy into a recession, Hanke explains.

He believes M2 at this point should be growing 5% to 6% a year.