They say generals always fight the last war, and the way the Fed addressed COVID was perfect evidence of that.
The Fed attacked the COVID slowdown the same way they attacked the demand collapse after the burst real estate bubble - by driving interest rates to 0% and buying large quantities of Treasuries and mortgage backed securities.
They say generals always fight the last war, and the way the Fed addressed COVID was perfect evidence of that.
The Fed attacked the COVID slowdown the same way they attacked the demand collapse after the burst real estate bubble - by driving interest rates to 0% and buying large quantities of Treasuries and mortgage backed securities.
Since this was not a demand-driven slowdown, once the lockdowns were lifted and people returned to work, all that excess liquidity had to go somewhere, and it went to the real estate market where prices rose 20% - 25%.
Shelter inflation, driven by high real estate prices, was the main source of inflation since.
The Fed's policy error was not uttering "transitory" - it was creating the inflation in the first place.
Great points....I was trying to imply this with the "clean up" of the liquidity flood they left after COVID QE and ZIRP. From their vantage point, the Fed should have been able to see the amount of fiscal stim being poured in as well as the mother of all mortgage refinancing waves they triggered with QE that put hundreds of extra dollars a month in homeowners pockets...
They should have at least stopped QE well before they did in 2022....they were afraid of a 2013 style taper tantrum I guess.
The covid inflation was caused by the Congress, not the Federal Reserve. Several of the governors including Powell warned pelosi that the House’s fiscal policy of handing out money would be inflationary but she did not care.
The Federal Reserve manages monetary policy, but they can only obey the Congress when they act with fiscal policy. The Fed has been warning for twenty years that Congress must rein in spending.
They say generals always fight the last war, and the way the Fed addressed COVID was perfect evidence of that.
The Fed attacked the COVID slowdown the same way they attacked the demand collapse after the burst real estate bubble - by driving interest rates to 0% and buying large quantities of Treasuries and mortgage backed securities.
Since this was not a demand-driven slowdown, once the lockdowns were lifted and people returned to work, all that excess liquidity had to go somewhere, and it went to the real estate market where prices rose 20% - 25%.
Shelter inflation, driven by high real estate prices, was the main source of inflation since.
The Fed's policy error was not uttering "transitory" - it was creating the inflation in the first place.
Great points....I was trying to imply this with the "clean up" of the liquidity flood they left after COVID QE and ZIRP. From their vantage point, the Fed should have been able to see the amount of fiscal stim being poured in as well as the mother of all mortgage refinancing waves they triggered with QE that put hundreds of extra dollars a month in homeowners pockets...
They should have at least stopped QE well before they did in 2022....they were afraid of a 2013 style taper tantrum I guess.
The covid inflation was caused by the Congress, not the Federal Reserve. Several of the governors including Powell warned pelosi that the House’s fiscal policy of handing out money would be inflationary but she did not care.
The Federal Reserve manages monetary policy, but they can only obey the Congress when they act with fiscal policy. The Fed has been warning for twenty years that Congress must rein in spending.