Posted on 03/05/2023 3:54:28 AM PST by EBH
The Federal Reserve Chairman’s testimony to Congress next week is likely to be very succinct and can be summed up neatly as ” the risks of doing too little are far greater than the risks of doing too much,” economists said Friday.
“The Fed is getting a little more hawkish than we pictured them at the end of last year,” said Michael Gregory, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets.
Powell will testify on Tuesday to the Senate Banking Committee and on Wednesday to the House Financial Services panel. Both hearings are set to begin at 10 a.m. Eastern.
Recent economic data is putting pressure on the Fed to be more aggressive in its monetary policy, economists said.
Less than two months ago, the narrative was that the U.S. economy was slowing and inflation was cooling and maybe the Fed only needed to raise interest rates a couple more times.
But since then, things have changed significantly.
The economy has perked up, job growth shot up in January, and revisions to the data erased the sense that inflation was cooling.
“Powell is going to emphasize the Fed has more work to do. That the job is not done and they are going to keep at it until the job is done,” said Laura Rosner-Warbuton, senior economist at MacroPolicy Perspectives.
“The Fed has been whipsawed by the data,” she added.
The Fed will meet to set interest rates on March 21-22. Ahead of that meeting will be February reports on jobs, consumer inflation and retail sales.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Rates, as painful as it may be to hear, are still way too low. The fed has to raise rates higher than 50 pts.
Is this where congress gets to shift the blame for inflation to the Federal reserve?
In other words, “let’s kill the Middle Class with rate hikes! That’ll do it! They are living off credit cards, what better way to throttle them!!”
The middle class has already been killed by inflation. Wages have been declining for 22 months straight. Credit card debt has exploded. The costs of food, fuel, rent, utilities, etc. are increasing. Inflation is the cruelest tax of all.
With used car loans around 7-8% which is double 3 years ago, you might think that sales are down. Wrong! A Mercedes Benz sales manager said his dealership sold 30 cars last Friday.
Oh...I know they are, but they’ve been doing that for a long time.
When the time came to tighten down, they didn’t.
When the time came to evaluate the their budgets, they didn’t.
When the time came to realize they were pushing their limits, they didn’t.
We have a whole generation or two, that really have never been called upon to struggle. We complain about today’s decadence of youth, well they’ve not paid for that privilege, now have they? We often say how spoiled this generation actually is and they do not even realize it.
The biggest difference between now and the 1970’s is back then the credit card was still a novelty thing. Reagan could do what they did because credit cards were not ubiquitous like they are today. The financial culture of the middle class was different and more solid, not built on debt.
they have to stop printing money to STOP INFLATION,
but will not.
the new printed money is for the corrupt Congress and
the pedophiles and traitors in charge of BOTH PARTIES.
However, I’m starting to see adds for low rate financing. 0.9 for 3 years, etc. don’t know if this is a contrary indicator but interesting.
One reason the fed has to keep raising rates is that the market still does not believe they are serious.
That belief system cannot be changed by a few quick rate raises—it will require years of high fed rates until the most die hard speculators capitulate.
Almost everyone is in denial about this—but years of increasing rates—eventually to double digits—is where I think this is going.
Also, the rest of the world is reducing their treasury holdings. Flooding the world with dollars which will have to eventually be spent to buy stuff. Inflationary as all get out. The higher rates seems to have slowed the selling but it’s still there.
You can make money as a bill. You can make money as a bear. But you get slaughtered as a pig. I see a lot of slaughtering on Wall Street as equities take a beating with the interest rates heading up. I agree several raises of 100 basis points are required. But that will shock things so much that I think the fed will trial a 75 basis point rise.
The dilemma is binds still seemed that appealing. Things just are a little wonky. Not following the rules exactly. The question is why?
The fed just needs quarter or half point increases every few months.
They will add up soon enough.
Psychology changes take time—no need to rush them.
“So far nothing has cooled off. With all these numbers being what appears to be manipulated, no one can make a reasonable assessment. The disconnect of the markets from the street doesn’t help either.
Rates, as painful as it may be to hear, are still way too low. The fed has to raise rates higher than 50 pts.”
___
All true. When Atlanta Fed’s Bostic came spoke last week and indicated they would only raise interest by .25 pts at the next meeting, the markets immediately reversed their downward trend. You can look at the graph and see exactly when he spoke. He also said the Fed expected to reverse their actions by the end of the year. The markets took that to mean everything was awesome and happy days are here again!
As long as the Biden administration insists on showering money on all their favored groups, and the feds are so insistence in trying to cover for Biden’s economic disaster, inflation will continue. All economic reporting numbers are being manipulated to present a narrative that our nation is in fantastic economic health.
Also, I’ve never seen $1,400 in stimulus money be spent and saved so much in a three year period as that the media credits with making the consumer currently so rich. To this day, the media reports on those funds as being part of the reason consumers have so much money. We apparently continue to save and spent the funds. LOL!
They tell us everything is rosy and ignore all the data that tells them otherwise while pointing to the DJIA and saying, “See, the markets are up”.
We are governed —actually now ruled — by fools, clowns, and evil people.
Biden and his administration are prime examples of people rising to their level of incompetence.
They are pointing to the stimulus, but that money has been spent! The spending they are seeing is credit cards. And the American consumer is doing this to not just stay even, but because the manipulation of the data is so deceptive.
They are bleeding the public with a thousand cuts. This is actually making matters worse for the crash. People are sinking further into debt than they normally should. The system does need a shock. Otherwise it is a slow painful death.
With used car loans around 7-8% which is double 3 years ago, you might think that sales are down. Wrong! A Mercedes Benz sales manager said his dealership sold 30 cars last Friday.
The level of competence for all left wingers can not rise beyond throwing money at a problem.
The solution to all problems is to throw money at it
“The solution to all problems is to throw money at it”
You have Congressional-level leadership skill.
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