From head-scratching fiscal and monetary policy to political elections, the 2020’s thus far have been strange days.
No tears for Powell. I have zero sympathy for the Fed.
- When COVID rolled through in Jan/Feb 2020 and team Trump and Mnuchin thought it would be a good idea to pump trillions of dollars into the economy to buy votes for the November 2020 election, Fed Chair Powell offered zero push back and happily printed the money to support Treasury’s efforts, (not to mention the $120 billion per month in QE nor the various Fed lending facilities without recourse).
- When Team Biden and Yellen thought it would be a good idea to print trillions of dollars for COVID relief and various social programs (i.e. to buy votes for the 2022 mid-terms as well as the 2024 general election), Fed Chair Powell again offered zero push back.
- Once the money was printed, inflation was a forgone conclusion. Tightening should have begun in Q4 2020, not Q2 2022. Now the Fed is tightening too fast into a slowing economy. It’s not as though additional tightening will lower the price of eggs or gasoline. Once again the Fed has failed.
2% CPI? Not this decade.
- December 2022 CPI will come in around 7%.
- Getting to 5-6% CPI over the next 6-9 months won’t be too difficult assuming the price of oil does not spike (it could).
- To get Headline CPI below 5% will be a challenge. 2% Headline CPI won’t happen this decade. This Fed does not have the stomach to clear the credit markets of the cheap paper that Treasury and Corporations have gorged on for 13 years.
Put voting on the blockchain. Speaking of elections, when did Election Day become Election Week? Time to put this awful election voting process on the blockchain where voters are authenticated on the front-end and there is a full public audit trail for all to see in real-time (voting tallies by county/state/etc. would be visible in real-time, not voter PII data). Clear the voter rolls of dead people and let’s get back to a time where we have same day elections and results. The current election morass is the stuff of banana republics.