Thursday, March 28, 2024

Federal Reserve Battle Could Bring Even More Economic Hardship

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Economists generally believe a of some sort is in America's future. The great unknowns are when it will happen and how bad it will be.

Keeping in mind that economists are not soothsayers, they can still raise useful questions about what central banks like our own are doing right now to fight . The BlackRock Investment Institute writes that the Fed's inflation struggle is one that involves trade-offs between growth and price stability.

But the Fed and its global counterparts aren't really interested in talking about what those trade-offs are, let alone the very real costs they impose on the rest of us. Is it right for the Fed to push rates higher – even if it means tanking the economy? Or does a more moderate approach that still isn't without its downsides make more sense?

Part of the problem the Fed faces is of its own making – an insistence that remain lower for longer, even when it was clear inflation was starting to accelerate. That mistake was compounded when the Fed said inflation was “transitory,” and stable prices were soon to return.

The data said otherwise, and so here we are. Yes, inflation has moderated ever so slowly in the last couple of months. But it's still at multi-decade highs. If it's still true that inflation is a thief in the night that quietly steals prosperity from everyone, then let the Fed fight.

If we are no longer so worried about inflationary theft – which would be a sea change in both economic and political thinking – then the Fed should go very slow so as not to break what is still a strong economy.

The preference should be to stop inflation. That will require courage, from the Fed, politicians and market participants.

It will also require vigilance, from all of the same actors. That's asking a lot of politicians, who are terrified of bad economic news of any sort. But it will require more from the rest of us, who will have to pay the real costs of the Fed's past monetary mistakes and the pols' fiscal irresponsibility.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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Norman Leahy
Norman Leahy
Norman Leahy has written about national and Virginia politics for more than 30 years with outlets ranging from The Washington Post to BearingDrift.com. A consulting writer, editor, recovering think tank executive and campaign operative, Norman lives in Virginia.

6 COMMENTS

  1. Two thoughts.
    First, there are few politicians who have country’s good as their primary concern. Their’s is about power and re-election.
    Second, when hasn’t the Fed been late to the party? The Fed hasn’t been proactive in my lifetime. It’s always react too late and then stay too long.

  2. The problem is the fed! Eliminate the Fed go to the gold standard and get rid of our politicians open checkbook.

    • Right! When was it, back in 1972? I cursed Tricky Dickie back then for annulling the gold standard. This created a cyberspace of floating decimal points with little anchoring or grounding in reality. We don’t want to base our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren ephemeral phantasms of paper printed on demand.

  3. Just think: Had the constitutional framers (like their early 1600 predecessors) established government and society upon the Bible’ immutable/unchanging moral law (including its economic and taxing statutes), there would be no no Federal Reserve, nor its mistress today’s usurious fiat banking system, nor its enforcement arm the Internal Revenue Service.

    There would, furthermore, be no graduated income tax, no property tax, no sales tax, nor any of the other sundry unbiblical taxes.

    For more on how the Bible’s integral triune moral law (the Ten Commandments and their respective statutes and judgments) applies and should be implemented today as the law of the land, see free online book “Law and Kingdom: Their Relevance Under the New Covenant” at Bible versus Constitution dot org. Go to our Online Book page and scroll down to title.
     
    See also Chapter 25 “Amendment 16: Graduated Income Tax vs. Flat Increase Tax” of free online book “Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective.” Click on the top entry on our Online Book page and scroll down to Chapter 25.

  4. I think that the Fed should be dissolved, inflation will just continue to rise and to really make more problems, the Democrat Senator from Ohio, Sharrod Brown wants to push for the Digital Dollar SB. 3571 “Banking For All Act” this will not help the American people. Call your Senators, my Senator who is responsible for this plunder, is behind this disaster, just like Cashless Bail, Abortion on Demand, Sanctuary States, endless emergency declarations, federal takeover of our election, on and on and on.

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