I did/do ~2% .
You’re welcome America ![]()
0 in 2020 and 2021.
I did/do ~2% .
You’re welcome America ![]()
0 in 2020 and 2021.
This Wed CPI 5.2% expected. A drop of 0.8% from previous month.
During the last inflationary blow-off we had government expanding supply through regulatory reform at the same time the Fed was destroying demand. This time around we have supply destruction at the same time we’re trying to reduce inflation. That plus of course massive money printing and a cap on how high the Fed can raise rates given the massive debt loads including the government. I don’t see inflation going away. More likely we come to accept a 5-6% rate (reported - with some fudge factors) as the new normal.
Michael Zuber thinks is too large a drop. He thinks at most 0.6% drop and Fed would hike 0.25% in May FOMC. He further thinks more than 0.6% drop, Fed would pause.
Does anyone think shelter is up 8.2% yr/yr? This is getting embarrassing.
Ironically the FED is driving up the cost of housing with higher interest rates. Higher mortgage rates mean higher equivalent rent prices. The FED is just making things worse.
Plus high interest rates mean less building more housing shortages that will keep driving up rents.
Good for existing landlords that have locked in low re-fi rates ![]()
Fed’s own army of PhDs predicted recession coming later this year. And Fed still hiked last month. That sounds criminal.
If the old people making decision don’t trust the research these PhDs are doing what’s the point of employing them there.
From today’s FOMC minutes.
What. If Fed has any honesty left they must keep hiking rates till inflation is 2%. And they know very well that they must induce a deep recession to kill inflation and bring back sanity. Assets and RE must fall 30% if this country wants to avoid full anarchy.
So far it looks like Fed and key think tanks (not wall street) understand this and will get the job done.
This is like killing the entire country and people together to live in poverty than really addressing the inflation issue.
See the issues with Srilanka, Afganistan, (or similar) etc political unrest, uncontrollable inflation. They are creating an environment that explodes the bubble.
Even if they do not artificially burst it, we have seen year 2020, a sudden drop of 36% that kind of autoburst will result a bigger recession and goes out of control.
The best way is “No fight with FED”, move to cash mode and when the support move to investment mode.

I doubt it since the FED and congress have zero desire to see a prolonged recession. They both act quickly to lower rates, increase liquidity, and hand out stimulus checks. Now that playbook is the expectation and people will be furious if they don’t see that action to fix a recession.
Majority of the country is already living in poverty and it has become far worse since money printing. Killing assets and RE is the only way to bring back 80% of population any hope and avoid complete collapse.
There is nothing called absolute poverty or prosperity. It’s all relative. The more the wealth gap the more the poverty is for the majority of people. We all know that Fed doesn’t care much about poor and work for rich but they also know very well that such extreme gaps will destroy the entire country and therefore rich too.
Prime age employment rate is the highest in 20 years. I think a bit of higher inflation is needed to get employment rate out of the funk it’s been in for two decades. There is nothing sacred about a 2% inflation target. If 3% inflation is needed to get full employment I say why the hell not?
Fed hiking rates to the moon will hurt the poor more. Don’t kid yourself it’s gonna hurt the rich more. Head or tail the rich always wins. Because they are already rich. They can always pay for the house in all cash. No need to qualify for a 6% mortgage like the plebs do. Larry “I need to see more pain” Summers want to see more people lose their jobs. You think the rich need to hold down a 9-to-5 like the poor do? They can just put their millions in Treasury and live off the interests.
Suppressing interest rates below inflation is same as printing. And no one has ever become prosperous by printing paper money. It’s Econ 101.
USD reserve status has saved US so far but that window is closing soon.
2% is only a recent target.
Since WWII, inflation has been >3% most of the time.
FED, as group, setup 2% as their target, I am not supporting or opposing it. I do not know how they fixed that, but whatever I know I am sharing here. I assume they have done enough study/research before making such 2% goal.
The lower the inflation, better in the long run as inflation kills the value of money. Remember the important part why FED was created.
If FED is not artificially make it burst, business economy will autoburst at sometime (year 2020 is an example) and the effect of such burst will ruin the country like 1929.
If you are right about high-lighted and concerned about helping 80% of population, you should resist raising rate like many here.
Remember this: FED FFR is common to country. When FFR is increased, the effect of real estate is a side effect and very minimal.
The FFR effect on poor people is higher than effect of real estate. Because impact is high on poor people, it is no way help them get a real estate.
In fact, that will help people like you, me and many cash rich people here.
Then, how it is going help poor people? When inflation is reduced or mainatined at 2% range, long term helps the poor people afforability to purchase goods & services, but big items like real estate will become out of reach unless the poor becomes Rich which is not FED’s focus.
Finally, my gut feeling, FED does not have any room to add 0.25%. They already damaged the economy in to brink of recession. Very likely, futures will reflect “No Rate Hike” in May 2023 as they released minutes of meeting which foresee recession !
If they do raise, I also feel something wrong/beyond my knowledge!
The Fed has a dual mandate: inflation and employment. It’s a balancing act. Fixating on 2% is wrong because it artificially suppresses the labor market.
The Fed has only one tool. If inflation gets just a little bit high it rushes to raise rates to tamp down demand. It doesn’t have the tools to induce more supply. In fact raising rates would destroy supply as firms slow down production and investment in a high rate environment. So our economy ends up being trapped in a low growth sub-optimum.
That’s pretty much what’s been going on since the GFC and now we finally broke out of the funk the Fed is rushing in to destroy the economy again. All in the name of the sacred 2% inflation target which doesn’t make any sense.
All in the name of the sacred 2% inflation target which doesn’t make any sense.
You may be right as I calculated average inflation since 1914, it comes to 3.28%. Looks like they set way below to achieve this 3%.
The FOMC targets an inflation rate of 2 percent. What does it mean to have an inflation target? And why target a positive number and not zero?
They officially stated the 2% target in 2012. It was unofficially a target in 1995. It seems the fed didn’t even develop it. It was an international effort.
“ Although the FOMC didn’t explicitly name an inflation target until 2012, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard has argued that the U.S. had “an implicit inflation target of 2 percent after 1995.” (See Bullard’s presentation from Sept. 12, 2018. In that presentation, he also noted that 2 percent became an international standard in the inflation targeting era that began in the 1990s.)”