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Ignoring politics, which I think makes this article somewhat off-topic, I would argue with many of the points in this article - but just one would be that ZIRP

Ignoring politics, which I think makes this article somewhat off-topic, I would argue with many of the points in this article - but just one would be that ZIRP specifically caused inflation and required higher interest rates. The way I remember it, rates were already raised substantially, during the first Trump admin, not due to inflation, lowered again during COVID, and raised due to inflation, where a likely causative factor in the inflation being high government spending and stimulus.

wombatpm 1y ago
Rate increases didn’t start until 2022. I was with a startup in the mortgage industry and got to experience that company’s first layoff followed by a layoff at a different startup 10 months later because raising another round of capital was seen as impossible. First action by the Federal Reserve March 16, 2022: Increased to 0.25%–0.50%
- etaioinshrdlu 1y ago
  In the chart in the article: https://pivot-to-ai.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/zirp-2005-2025-page.webp https://pivot-to-ai.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/zirp-2005... You can clearly see non-zero interest rates from 2016 to 2020...
  - wombatpm 1y ago
    Very slow increase to around 2 in an attempt to end QE, dipping to 1.5 before falling off a cliff with COVID. Compare to rates going back to 2000
scarface_74 1y ago
You can’t ignore politics when it’s the direct cause of this economic mess
toomuchtodo 1y ago
Broad macro inflation is due to smaller working age populations. The pandemic pulled this forward due to excess deaths and retirements (~3M). It’s also why the labor market has been so resilient (unemployment rate) in the face of so much uncertainty and volatility. There are simply not enough workers. Egg inflation is Avian flu related, housing is because of a housing shortage caused by building pipeline impairment since the 2008 GFC (which will likely never recover, due to structural demographics and no appetite to allow immigration at the level required for the construction trades). (~4M Boomers retire a year, ~11k/day, ~2M people 55+ die every year, about half of which are in the labor force; that means ~13k-14k workers leave the labor force every day in the US) https://www.axios.com/2024/06/27/labor-shortage-workforce-economy https://www.axios.com/2024/06/27/labor-shortage-workforce-ec... http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2022/08/are-older-workers-propping-up-us-economy.html http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2022/08/are-older-worke... https://www.stlouisfed.org/timely-topics/retirements-increased-during-pandemic https://www.stlouisfed.org/timely-topics/retirements-increas...
jeltz 1y ago
If the issue had been as simple as government spending we would not have seen the inflation in countries which did not have the same government spending the US had but we did. Maybe it contributed but I doubt it was the primary cause since inflation happened all over the world and not just in countries with generous stimulus packages. Plus a lot of the inflation was caused by increasing energy prices in 2022, totally unrelated to government spending.
- etaioinshrdlu 1y ago
  Sure, but I think COVID disruptions broadly are a much better explanation for inflation than the previous decade of ZIRP, which the article asserts.

wombatpm 1y ago

Rate increases didn’t start until 2022. I was with a startup in the mortgage industry and got to experience that company’s first layoff followed by a layoff at a different startup 10 months later because raising another round of capital was seen as impossible. First action by the Federal Reserve March 16, 2022: Increased to 0.25%–0.50%

etaioinshrdlu 1y ago
In the chart in the article: https://pivot-to-ai.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/zirp-2005-2025-page.webp https://pivot-to-ai.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/zirp-2005... You can clearly see non-zero interest rates from 2016 to 2020...
- wombatpm 1y ago
  Very slow increase to around 2 in an attempt to end QE, dipping to 1.5 before falling off a cliff with COVID. Compare to rates going back to 2000

scarface_74 1y ago

You can’t ignore politics when it’s the direct cause of this economic mess

toomuchtodo 1y ago

Broad macro inflation is due to smaller working age populations. The pandemic pulled this forward due to excess deaths and retirements (~3M). It’s also why the labor market has been so resilient (unemployment rate) in the face of so much uncertainty and volatility. There are simply not enough workers. Egg inflation is Avian flu related, housing is because of a housing shortage caused by building pipeline impairment since the 2008 GFC (which will likely never recover, due to structural demographics and no appetite to allow immigration at the level required for the construction trades). (~4M Boomers retire a year, ~11k/day, ~2M people 55+ die every year, about half of which are in the labor force; that means ~13k-14k workers leave the labor force every day in the US) https://www.axios.com/2024/06/27/labor-shortage-workforce-economy https://www.axios.com/2024/06/27/labor-shortage-workforce-ec... http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2022/08/are-older-workers-propping-up-us-economy.html http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2022/08/are-older-worke... https://www.stlouisfed.org/timely-topics/retirements-increased-during-pandemic https://www.stlouisfed.org/timely-topics/retirements-increas...

jeltz 1y ago

If the issue had been as simple as government spending we would not have seen the inflation in countries which did not have the same government spending the US had but we did. Maybe it contributed but I doubt it was the primary cause since inflation happened all over the world and not just in countries with generous stimulus packages. Plus a lot of the inflation was caused by increasing energy prices in 2022, totally unrelated to government spending.

etaioinshrdlu 1y ago
Sure, but I think COVID disruptions broadly are a much better explanation for inflation than the previous decade of ZIRP, which the article asserts.