Fed hikes rates as inflation worries push up bond yields • Hacker News Board

Re: Fed hikes rates as inflation worries push up bond yields

#181

Post by RickJWagner » Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 12:44 AM UTC

Scottn1 wrote: post #66

dabinat wrote: post #27

Prediction: this causes a recession in two years, right after a Democrat wins the White House, who will be blamed for it. The economy will turn around after a few years, just in time for a Republican to win and claim they fixed it. This is how Republicans have a reputation for being economically savvy despite actual evidence to the contrary, because the general population doesn’t understand that economics runs on a t…

At what point into a presidential term does it become their actual mess? And is there evidence of a time delay? Because by that argument, the mess we are in would been caused by Democrats.

Arbitrarily decided by the person with political convictions blinding them.

Yes, it happens to both sides. People convince themselves their side always makes right decisions, the other side always wrong.

The truth is that the secret sauce is in the pendulum going back and forth. The excesses of one side are soon erased by the other. It is working, as it has for many years.

Re: Fed hikes rates as inflation worries push up bond yields

#182

Post by RickJWagner » Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 12:48 AM UTC

UncleOxidant wrote: post #133

jameslk wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both parties are responsible for the inflation and debt. Fiscal policy is largely driven by congress, not the president

This president single-handedly raised tariffs on goods from all over the world.

Yes. It is a tax. He raised a tax.

You might argue it is inflationary.

Re: Fed hikes rates as inflation worries push up bond yields

#183

Post by themaninthedark » Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 12:56 AM UTC

macintux wrote: post #141

adventured wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't going to be a great depression. The US is going to debase itself endlessly through spend-print-spend-print. At some point they may load up enough debt that the economy suffers a gradual heat death, in the style of Japan, wherein too much of your national capital is going to debt maintenance, sitting in a low yield blackhole sucking the dynamism out of your system (instead of going to productive use, busin…

> since Bush nearly doubled the size of the Federal Government and blew up our finances with simultaneous tax cuts + massive spending expansion We were 10 years from paying off the national debt when Clinton left office. 10 years!

What would job numbers look like if the federal government wasn't doubled?

I say this as someone who thinks Bush was an absolute idiot and would love to see the government shrunk.

TSA is basically a jobs program, what happens if we get rid of it?

Re: Fed hikes rates as inflation worries push up bond yields

#184

Post by carefree-bob » Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 1:00 AM UTC

RickJWagner wrote: post #182

UncleOxidant wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This president single-handedly raised tariffs on goods from all over the world.

Yes. It is a tax. He raised a tax. You might argue it is inflationary.

By that logic, interest rate hikes should be inflationary.

It is highly unusual to argue that taxation is inflationary since the whole point of inflation is to reduce demand.

Re: Fed hikes rates as inflation worries push up bond yields

#185

Post by what » Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 1:23 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #165

nemomarx wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really really just need to raise taxes. Just find a way to sell that to the public (focus on the rich or large corporations or whatever outgroup you want basically)

Our budget deficit is $2 trillion. To close it, you need to significantly raise taxes on the fattest part of the income curve, which is the top 25%. They have $10 trillion of income. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in... . An across the board 200 basis point increase would close the deficit. That would raise their taxes to 38% at the low end to 46% at the high end, which is perfectly fine. T…

> taking half of someone’s money is totally fine

Okay. Then let’s also reduce what’s spent welfare/benefits by a similar amount, at least we’re not taking money they worked for.

Re: Fed hikes rates as inflation worries push up bond yields

#186

Post by kccoder » Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 2:01 AM UTC

jameslk wrote: post #57

dabinat wrote: post #27

Prediction: this causes a recession in two years, right after a Democrat wins the White House, who will be blamed for it. The economy will turn around after a few years, just in time for a Republican to win and claim they fixed it. This is how Republicans have a reputation for being economically savvy despite actual evidence to the contrary, because the general population doesn’t understand that economics runs on a t…

Both parties are responsible for the inflation and debt. Fiscal policy is largely driven by congress, not the president

The BBB, Iran war, and tariffs, something done solely by republicans, sometimes just the president, are the source of inflation, so you can attribute this situation mostly on Trump, and fully on republicans.

Re: Fed hikes rates as inflation worries push up bond yields

#187

Post by bothers » Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 2:05 AM UTC

ThunderSizzle wrote: post #58

kadoban wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation is high, so interest rates need to go up to try to slow that, but the economy isn't doing amazing already, and higher interest rates won't help that. Not to mention the US debt is _high_ as hell and bond yields mean that's more expensive. And the country is run by a broken fool who has no interest or ability to fix any of that.

The country has been _run_ by fools for 26 years. Congress has had 26 years to do something about the fiscal situation, and we've had four presidents, and the fiscal responsible side of the electorate is never listened to. Both sides are to blame - neither will fix the problem. Obama could've made that his goal - he was competent, had a lot of political good will, and many people were frustrated at the bailout policy…

> Both sides are to blame

— the one side after they fsck the country sideways, every goddamn time.

Re: Fed hikes rates as inflation worries push up bond yields

#188

Post by lenerdenator » Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 2:08 AM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #29

maerF0x0 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> want to pay any of it back in tax If they dont pay it back in tax, they pay it back in debasement of their savings and entitlements

Yep, inflation is just another kind of tax, and one that's quite hard to avoid.

If you look at the kind of person who makes massive donations to politicians and initiatives that are about massive tax reforms (think Missouri's recent ballot question about introducing a state sales tax and eventually sunset its income tax) you'll notice that a lot of them are very wealthy people who have very, very few people that they have to answer to in their lives. The one exception, it would seem, is the tax man, and they absolutely hate that.

Market forces like inflation aren't a person exerting control over them. They're the results of humans acting within social structures. These people have control over social structures; they're the elite. They can counter that market force with some other market force. Taxes? That's cold, hard math. There's no way around it, no feeling of agency to be had. So while it might be harder to avoid, it's not the financial effect that they worry about, because they have enough money to weather that. It's the feeling of obligation and powerlessness in the face of others that they can't brook.

Re: Fed hikes rates as inflation worries push up bond yields

#189

Post by esalman » Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 2:24 AM UTC

carefree-bob wrote: post #147

dabinat wrote: post #27

Prediction: this causes a recession in two years, right after a Democrat wins the White House, who will be blamed for it. The economy will turn around after a few years, just in time for a Republican to win and claim they fixed it. This is how Republicans have a reputation for being economically savvy despite actual evidence to the contrary, because the general population doesn’t understand that economics runs on a t…

A 0.25% rate hike is going to cause a recession? How, exactly, would that happen? Honestly it seems your post is heavy on politics but I am not seeing an actual argument anywhere in there. My canned response to people being upset at various policies or ratios, whether it is inflation, or bond yields, or market movements, is to ask them what they think the correct value should be. Stop complaining about the movement a…

I don't think numbers matter here.

Bond prices shooting up is a result of market losing trust in US, or it's ability to not default.

Dollar is famous backed by $700T military. But the world has seen how it failed to secure a strait.

The current US government has broken all kind of promises. I want to highlight two in particular - free trade and immigration.

World economy has benefited for decades on the promises of free trade. The tariffs have eroded the promise and trust.

The government is also openly supporting elements who are hostile to immigrants. Immigrants are the backbone of US economy, has been for over hundred years. Immigrating to the US requires years of preparation, long term planning, and giving up on other luxuries and opportunities. When the government starts breaking promises by changing rules and moving the goalposts overnight, it discourages participation.

Re: Fed hikes rates as inflation worries push up bond yields

#190

Post by carefree-bob » Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 2:30 AM UTC

esalman wrote: post #189

carefree-bob wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 0.25% rate hike is going to cause a recession? How, exactly, would that happen? Honestly it seems your post is heavy on politics but I am not seeing an actual argument anywhere in there. My canned response to people being upset at various policies or ratios, whether it is inflation, or bond yields, or market movements, is to ask them what they think the correct value should be. Stop complaining about the movement a…

I don't think numbers matter here. Bond prices shooting up is a result of market losing trust in US, or it's ability to not default. Dollar is famous backed by $700T military. But the world has seen how it failed to secure a strait. The current US government has broken all kind of promises. I want to highlight two in particular - free trade and immigration. World economy has benefited for decades on the promises of f…

The dollar is not "backed" by a military. China has a huge military and no one uses the Yuan for third party trade. Why not? Because China does not run trade deficits that allow third parties to acquire the Yuan in the first place, it does not have open capital markets that allow third parties to store their surpluses in Yuan, and it does not have the investor protections that give investors confidence that they can pull their savings out whenever they want.

You know a nation that does have those things other than the US? Switzerland, which is why a lot of people use swiss Francs, even though Switzerland does not have a huge military. People need to stop reading Graber and others who have no economic training and don't understand global balance of payment accounting. Having a large military does not translate into people wanting your currency, otherwise China, North Korea, and Russia would have well used international currencies, rather than being forced to use the currency of their rivals.