An excellent profile of Neel Kashkari, the President of the Minneapolis Fed and voting member this year on the FOMC, explores his thinking on monetary policy.
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!
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 ...
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.
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'.
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)?
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.
No one knows the lags or how large the effects of interest rates will be with the labor market so strong. It is most likely that slowing inflation recently has little to do with the Fed and more to do with supply disruptions from Covid (goods and labor shortages) and Ukraine, as well as the end of fiscal relief. Financial conditions, like the rate at which families and businesses borrow at, have moved up quickly and by a lot, but it takes a while to get to the real economy ... how much people spend/invest overall.
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!
Good question. I will address that in a future post. It's complicated ...
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 ...
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.
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'.
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)?
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.
No one knows the lags or how large the effects of interest rates will be with the labor market so strong. It is most likely that slowing inflation recently has little to do with the Fed and more to do with supply disruptions from Covid (goods and labor shortages) and Ukraine, as well as the end of fiscal relief. Financial conditions, like the rate at which families and businesses borrow at, have moved up quickly and by a lot, but it takes a while to get to the real economy ... how much people spend/invest overall.