In order to get inflation to 2%, how much demand do you have to kill or how much does credit have to tighten to offset the new interest income in the economy and a 6.1% fiscal deficit per year for the next decade? Inflation will be higher for longer. The Fed by necessity will have a higher implicit if not [...]
The issue of inflation targeting has once again come to the forefront, though for reasons and in a way policymakers had never anticipated. That speaks volumes already. The recent introduction of this (flexible) average inflation targeting is merely the latest tweak to a process that’s already more than thirty years old. Not exactly new thinking. While the US Federal Reserve [...]
According to one research company, new Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was disgusted and angry at his press conference yesterday. The firm, Prattle, employed facial recognition software to track Powell’s expressions throughout his inaugural press conference. By their count, he was disgusted 36 times, angry 41 times, and expressed contempt another five. Powell conveyed joy on a mere four instances. [...]
In late January 2012, the FOMC released an official statement confirming to the world what had long been expected. The official goal of monetary policy, or at least one of them, was to achieve price stability being clearly defined as 2% inflation (PCE Deflator). It was part of the ultimate transformation of Federal Reserve policy, from the hidden, intentionally opaque [...]
In the early throes of economic devastation in 1931, Sweden found itself particularly vulnerable to any number of destabilizing factors. The global economy had been hit by depression, and the Great Contraction was bearing down on the Swedish monetary system. The krona had always been linked to the British pound, so that when the Bank of England removed gold convertibility [...]
I suspect President Trump has been told that markets don’t like radical changes. If there is one thing that any elected official is afraid of, it’s the internet flooded with reports of grave financial instability. We need only go back a year to find otherwise confident authorities suddenly reassessing their whole outlook. On the campaign trail, candidate Trump was very [...]
The Federal Reserve defines price stability in terms of consumer prices rather than a stable currency. Up until 2012, any inflation target was implicit in monetary policy behavior rather than explicitly stated as an incorporated aspect. Everyone knew, of course, that the Fed had throughout the 1990’s sought a stable regime of around 2% growth in the PCE Deflator. Furthermore, [...]
I suspect that Federal Reserve officials would prefer to not speak about inflation, nor ever again be asked about it. When oil prices first crashed at the end of 2014, they said it was a “transitory” phenomenon not worthy of much attention. Or if it was to be given some consideration, it was a benefit to consumers, another positive “tailwind” [...]
There was more bad news for the FOMC over the past few days beside the once again near-zero GDP estimate. If the labor market were truly growing as is claimed, we should be finding “inflation” in a broad set of different economic views. From the standard inflation calculations to various estimates for wages or income, by now it should be [...]
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