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Federal Reserve raises rates by 0.75%

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221–230 of 593 posts

Re: Federal Reserve raises rates by 0.75%

#221

You can argue either side to this, and make a good case. My personal preference is to trigger a recession and reduce inflation. The easy cop-out solution is to say a "big f*ck off" to pensioners, lower middle class, and poor people and let inflation soar, but I believe that long term this would be more destructive to the general economy. Better take the long term view here and not kick the can down the street.

Inflation is largely being driven by import problems and oil prices, therefore, it is unclear if a recession is a golden key to lower inflation. Keep in mind that oil is internationally expensive, and even a reduction in the US may not bring down prices significantly . So we could see recession AND inflation at the same time. Then tack on higher interest rates, and everything goes squish.

A huge component of American and British inflation is endogenous (stimulus checks, loose monetary policy, etc…). Both the central bank and the government can and should do something about it.

Core inflation in the UK is 6.2%, in the US is 6%, more than half the inflation rate. This is not the same in countries more affected by the energy shock, such as the eurozone.

Re: Federal Reserve raises rates by 0.75%

#222

remarkable how many people in this thread are assuming the bottom of the income distribution is hurt the most by inflation. Think about who has debt (mortgage, student, medical expenses, car payments) and who that debt is owed to (banks, corporations) and what happens to that debt in real dollars when inflation is happening. The debt becomes less meaningful. Wages rise (they have in fact been rising), and the payment…

You're very right, but I think the trick is that prices rise faster than wages, if they ever fully catch up. That lag between price and wage increase is a super immediate problem for anyone going paycheck-to-paycheck.

Re: Federal Reserve raises rates by 0.75%

#223
post #61
post #26

Something I haven’t seen discussed much is the impact of inflation on the existing federal debt. This is actually a positive for taxpayers as the federal debt will become cheaper. Obviously we’re still spending a ton and are issuing debt at higher rates now, so it’s not some kind of magic cure or anything.

Most of the debt is shorter term and must be continually rolled over. So when first moving from low expectations of inflation to high expectations, there is a temporary one-time gain, but after that the government will need to pay higher interest. And of course when the expectations return to normal there is a period when the government must pay higher than needed rates.

Good point - that's all true. Another important point is that the principal has also been impacted by inflation and the amount that needs to be rolled is less than the initial bond in real terms.

Re: Federal Reserve raises rates by 0.75%

#224
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still waiting for inflation to hit my effing salary. I know it won't, because we're entering stagflation territory and unemployment is going to go up. COVID was a massive wealth transfer from the lower and (esp) middle class to the oligarchs.

Have you asked for a raise?

The company I work for is directly (negatively) impacted by rising rates, so I don't expect they'd be amenable to granting raises at the moment.

Re: Federal Reserve raises rates by 0.75%

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were net exporters during covid under the last admin. This is the policy the current admin enacted that cut our production: https://www.csis.org/analysis/biden-makes-sweeping-changes-o... Please point to something that supports your theory that "covid did it" and oil companies are "dragging their feet". - edit, at my post limit - @vel0city: Banning new leases two years ago hurt our production output. Banning new s…

Here is one example. "Not Even at $200 a Barrel: Shale Giants Swear They Won’t Drill More" [1] https://energynow.com/2022/02/not-even-at-200-a-barrel-shale...

First, the title is not the quote, the quote was "Whether it’s $150 oil, $200 oil, or $100 oil, we’re not going to change our growth plans".

Second, that has nothing to do with our production capacity, doesn't prove that "covid" caused us to drop our net export status, or that the industry is unwilling to fill production.

It's one misconstrued quote from an exec. He was talking about not collapsing the price when we overproduced for a brief period during our time of net exporting.

This is the REAL response from the oil & gas industry and it's concerning the federal lease bans: https://www.api.org/news-policy-and-issues/exploration-and-p...

When you're looking for the perspective of the oil & gas industry, API statements are a lot more reliable than an EnergyNow article.

Now that I've addressed your article, would you like to address the administration policy decision I linked above?

-- edit, at my post limit --

In short, this is the effect of the federal leasing ban:

https://www.api.org/-/media/Files/Policy/Exploration/2020/fe...

-- edit2 --

@vel0city: the "if" was contingent on the federal ban on new leases, which happened... two years ago.

We are seeing these predictions play out. Tech support using the covid excuse is annoying, but when government leaders use it to hide behind poor policies, it's dangerous.

Re: Federal Reserve raises rates by 0.75%

#226
post #62
post #26

Something I haven’t seen discussed much is the impact of inflation on the existing federal debt. This is actually a positive for taxpayers as the federal debt will become cheaper. Obviously we’re still spending a ton and are issuing debt at higher rates now, so it’s not some kind of magic cure or anything.

Related (but different): I'm wondering how much inflation will shift tax payers into higher brackets and increase the overall income for the government from those taxes.

In German, this is known as Kalte Progression ("cold progression"). Apparently (according to Wikipedia), in English it's "bracket creep"?

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalte_Progression

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket_creep

Re: Federal Reserve raises rates by 0.75%

#227

You can argue either side to this, and make a good case. My personal preference is to trigger a recession and reduce inflation. The easy cop-out solution is to say a "big f*ck off" to pensioners, lower middle class, and poor people and let inflation soar, but I believe that long term this would be more destructive to the general economy. Better take the long term view here and not kick the can down the street.

At the end of the day, inflation on average hurts older people, and older people are more likely to vote.

Re: Federal Reserve raises rates by 0.75%

#228
post #4

It seems the Fed is stuck in a state of overreaction. First they overshoot on money printing, then they disregard early signs of inflation, and now they're in a panic in the opposite direction. Seeing the news this week that Bernanke said that the Fed should be able to pull off a soft-landing now in 2022 gave me an uncomfortable déjà vu -- he said the same in 2006 and 2007, right before he raised rates enough to kick…

In fairness, inflation seems largely driven by energy prices, which in turn are driven by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Not the top event I'd imagine a bank predicting well.

You mean SA not playing ball?

Re: Federal Reserve raises rates by 0.75%

#229

You can argue either side to this, and make a good case. My personal preference is to trigger a recession and reduce inflation. The easy cop-out solution is to say a "big f*ck off" to pensioners, lower middle class, and poor people and let inflation soar, but I believe that long term this would be more destructive to the general economy. Better take the long term view here and not kick the can down the street.

I don't think it's that simple. Lower middle class and poor people have debt, and inflation is good for making debt less valuable in real dollars. Pensioners, maybe, but social security is indexed to inflation if I'm not mistaken? I wouldn't be surprised if many public and private pensions are as well. This is much more a move in favor of the rich that are owed money by the poor imo.

They have debt, but they also have work contracts with out of date wages. But even in our sector, with the leverage that we as programmers have, companies don’t bother to match inflation. You have to make some risky or uncomfortable move to renegotiate your wage or find a new job. For many people it can be worse. So, everyone is under additional financial stress.

Re: Federal Reserve raises rates by 0.75%

#230
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> personal preference is to trigger a recession and reduce inflation These aren't binary outcomes. Tight money does nothing to ease supply-side bottlenecks. It does little to target demand displaced by rising energy prices. If those are the principal drivers of inflation, tightening could depress non-energy demand in a way that causes a recession without alleviating inflation. Stagflation. (To be clear, we're not at…

> If those are the principal drivers of inflation, tightening could depress non-energy demand in a way that causes a recession without alleviating inflation You don't think the inflation has anything to do with printing $14 trillion out of thin air, or increasing the M1 money supply from ~4tn in march 2020 to over $20tn today? https://www.covidmoneytracker.org/ https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL

The M1 jump is not new money for the most part, it's a reclassification of things that used to be M2 as also being M1 (liquid) https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2021/05/savings-are-now-more...

M2 increased in 2020, but not by as much as you're saying https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

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