Fed’s AC/DC Hot Air Stoking Inflation?

To gain time to “study” the progress their agency made on fighting runaway inflation, 2 Fed chiefs signaled a “pause” in higher interest rates possible. BUT, does that look like our gurus may be caving on stopping the beast AGAIN?

Anybody check out lately the price of 75% lean hamburger in the grocer’s meat section? The recent AP report on the subject says the regional “Fed officials are split about what to do next to fight inflation.” Great. These are the same gurus who sucked their thumbs for two years rather than raise the ridiculously low interest rate they had been for years charging banks (and, therefore, just about everyone else who needs a loan), despite Congress’s wild pandemic spending spree. The result? The two forces “worked” in tandem to trigger a nearly 10% inflation rate. When the Fed FINALLY started to raise its own interest rate to tamp down the nation’s spiraling prices for goods & services, inflation did deflate in roughly half over a 6 month period, although even the Fed concedes the ongoing 4-5% monthly increase in the cost of stuff is going to be crippling in the long run.

Just a few days ago, the WSJ thought businesses & regular folk almost seem to be getting “used to” higher inflation as in a “permanent” & unavoidable fact of life. As if they have a choice with such wafflers in charge? Meanwhile, we’re supposed to be impressed that the Fed’s “conservatives” are engaging in a spirited debate with their “liberal” colleagues on “what to do next”? What was it historian Jacques Barzun might have said about that debate? “A man who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called a liberal as opposed to the conservative, who has both feet firmly planted in his mouth”? Apples & oranges or hot air at $5 a pound?

Davd Soul