Not only is 2% a fairly tepid number, we’ve had to cut rates, make promises to “sustain the expansion”, stop the tapering of The Fed’s balance sheet just to get

Not only is 2% a fairly tepid number, we’ve had to cut rates, make promises to “sustain the expansion”, stop the tapering of The Fed’s balance sheet just to get that 2%. All throughout 2013-2017, the CPI number has hovered either close to 2% or been below it. Keep in mind that the Fed’s goal is symmetric, meaning that to make up for the times when CPI is below 2%, there needs to be other times when CPI is above 2%. It blows my mind that throughout the late 80s and 90s we were hitting anywhere from 3-5% and now we’re struggling to get 2%.