8 Comments

Great commentary and explanations. The Fed Like the Supreme Court has always represented the elite White perspective. We need a new justice movement to change this and the trends do not look good.

Could you comment on how current macro thought and policy is peculiar because it is looking at an economy coming off years of essentially zero interest rates!

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Jan 10, 2023Liked by Claudia Sahm

We get monetary policy that suits THEM -- it's monetary policy for and by aristocrats.

As for Kashkari's derisive '“I’m waiting for the crisis to come along where the rich get hurt,” he says.' be careful what you wish for: it's called a revolution ...

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Kashkari might also be a carpetbagger. He ran for Governor of California in 2014! Congress if it were more progressive might be able to automatically reduce unemployment if it passed a law using the MMT solution of Employer of Last Resort which to me has a lot of promise.

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When Larry Summers sits on a beach and calls for increased unemployment (not referring to himself, of course), I wouldn't use the word "hawk." Hawks come to my back yard and are beautiful creatures. Larry Summers is not a beautiful creature. Neither is Jerome Powell. I would use the word "obscene."

Powell has essentially said that right now, since all the other markers of inflation are doing well, his marker of inflation is unemployment. If there's healthy employment, that's bad. Summers has been saying this for years. Of course, raising interest rates doesn't selectively raise unemployment rates. It also kills the housing market for middle class Americans, etc.. Given our economic recovery, it seems insane that the Fed would keep raising interest rates, knowing full well how many vulnerable people will be hurt and how many lives will be ruined. Powell, of course, is an investment banker, not an economist. In the world of zero sum games, when one person suffers, another thrives. I wonder how Powell's friends in the investment banking community are doing these days? Just sayin'.

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The Fed’s measure of inflation is still above target and unemployment is at a multi decade low with a lot of unfilled job openings. So shouldn’t the Fed’s orientation lean to reducing inflation (hawkish)?

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What is the Fed thinking on lags btw interest rate changes and economic effects? If they have already done enough, we’ll see that in a few months with a soft-ish landing if they overshoot now, a real crash is likely. The problem is that they have to act now, before they know if their aggressive moves have been too much, too little or just right.

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