Inflation isn’t “cooling.” Inflationary cycles don’t just pop like the “bubbles” everyone has gotten accustomed to.
Going from 7.9% to 6.9% is still a disaster, not a reason to celebrate.
Current inflation has not been caused by an overheated economy, but by scarcity and devaluation of the dollar. Input costs (fuel,feed, fertilizer) are still rising.
There is no bubble to pop, and we’re still doing exactly what we did to get here. Nothing changes until fundamentals - like collective behavior and leadership - change.
Inflation is always caused by an excess supply of money. Often it is an overheated economy that generates this excess via an increase in the multiplier effect, but in this case it was unnecessary government spending to stimulate an economy that already was recovering following the COVID lockdowns. Whatever the cause, though, one way for the Fed to reign in the money supply, and thus control inflation is an increase in interest rates. Increasing rates result in less borrowing and therefore a lower multiplier, and therefore a decrease in the money supply. As you point out, this has happened to some degree, but a decrease in inflation to 6% or so is not sufficient. Hence more rate increases.
Apparently this author is relatively young if he thinks under 6% is a high rate. The interest rates reached well over 10% (and IIRC got up to around 14%) back in the early 80s before the inflation that had been rampant for most off the previous decade was brought under control. 5.8% or so isn’t so high by comparison.