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The Fed learned under Volcker back in the early 80s that prioritizing killing inflation is the best way to ensure medium and long-term economic and employment g

The Fed learned under Volcker back in the early 80s that prioritizing killing inflation is the best way to ensure medium and long-term economic and employment growth, even if it causes lower growth or recession in the near-term. That’s likely the playbook Powell is operating under now.

jjoonathan 4y ago
Perhaps, but the Fed chair is a political appointment and the politicians learned a different lesson. Carter appointed Volcker and put America on chemotherapy. He caught blame for both inflation and de-leveraging withdrawal symptoms. Reagan got to take America off chemotherapy and take credit in the popular conscience for both reduced inflation and the re-leveraging boom. The political lesson: putting America on chemotherapy is important but politically somewhere between "thankless" and "suicidal." When Powell was confirmed, it was with this context in mind. Politicians were thinking "do I want to be the next Carter"? I am worried that they only confirmed Powell because they thought he would not be the next Volcker. Of course, now that he has been confirmed for the next 4 years, he has some freedom to diverge from expectations. We'll see.
ptero 4y ago
In Volker time, federal debt (as a fraction of the GDP) was low, he could raise rates without crippling the budget with interest payments. With today's federal debt level the fed is screwed: it cannot raise rates even close to inflation without busting the budget and cannot lower them (to fight a recession) without spiking inflation. My bet is on long term rates-below-inflation period to deflate debts, similar to post-war period in the 1940s. And lots ofrhetoric. But it will be a painful ride.
- solveit 4y ago
  The Fed does not have the mandate to do what is convenient for the budget. That's not their problem. Obviously this is naive and I'm sure the Fed is under all kinds of pressure, but the Fed is supposed to kill inflation by raising rates to whatever it takes, as long as they don't kill jobs at the same time. The government is supposed to figure something out themselves.
- imtringued 4y ago
  You could also just reduce the money supply by abolishing QE and introducing negative interest rates on liquid deposits and cash. Then everyone can run a balanced budget and watch their debt melt away. The reason why we have price controls aka the zero lower bound of interest is that we would rather become eternal debt slaves (money supply has always been growing exponentially even under a gold standard) than face nominal losses that force us to face an umcomfortable truth that from this point onwards you will never earn anything again from owning abundant physical capital and that you will have to work for your own money instead of making others work for it.

jjoonathan 4y ago

Perhaps, but the Fed chair is a political appointment and the politicians learned a different lesson. Carter appointed Volcker and put America on chemotherapy. He caught blame for both inflation and de-leveraging withdrawal symptoms. Reagan got to take America off chemotherapy and take credit in the popular conscience for both reduced inflation and the re-leveraging boom. The political lesson: putting America on chemotherapy is important but politically somewhere between "thankless" and "suicidal." When Powell was confirmed, it was with this context in mind. Politicians were thinking "do I want to be the next Carter"? I am worried that they only confirmed Powell because they thought he would not be the next Volcker. Of course, now that he has been confirmed for the next 4 years, he has some freedom to diverge from expectations. We'll see.

ptero 4y ago

In Volker time, federal debt (as a fraction of the GDP) was low, he could raise rates without crippling the budget with interest payments. With today's federal debt level the fed is screwed: it cannot raise rates even close to inflation without busting the budget and cannot lower them (to fight a recession) without spiking inflation. My bet is on long term rates-below-inflation period to deflate debts, similar to post-war period in the 1940s. And lots ofrhetoric. But it will be a painful ride.

solveit 4y ago
The Fed does not have the mandate to do what is convenient for the budget. That's not their problem. Obviously this is naive and I'm sure the Fed is under all kinds of pressure, but the Fed is supposed to kill inflation by raising rates to whatever it takes, as long as they don't kill jobs at the same time. The government is supposed to figure something out themselves.
imtringued 4y ago
You could also just reduce the money supply by abolishing QE and introducing negative interest rates on liquid deposits and cash. Then everyone can run a balanced budget and watch their debt melt away. The reason why we have price controls aka the zero lower bound of interest is that we would rather become eternal debt slaves (money supply has always been growing exponentially even under a gold standard) than face nominal losses that force us to face an umcomfortable truth that from this point onwards you will never earn anything again from owning abundant physical capital and that you will have to work for your own money instead of making others work for it.