Wednesday the 29th of JUNE Nick cleans up, page-98

Hi @farlap

Excerpts from an article in the NYT this morning … the real hidden concern is that “a period of sustained high inflation could change consumer psychology in ways that sustain high inflation” … no fundamental reason for a sustained sharemarket rise … a sustained bear market? I added a couple of bonded comments within the excerpts below.

Dex

[[[ Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he was more concerned about the risk of failing to stamp out high inflation than about the possibility of raising interest rates too high and pushing the economy into a recession.

“Is there a risk we would go too far? Certainly there’s a risk,” Mr. Powell said Wednesday. “The bigger mistake to make—let’s put it that way—would be to fail to restore price stability.”

Fed officials are raising rates at the most aggressive pace since the 1980s in part because of concerns that higher prices could change consumer psychology in ways that sustain high inflation. Economists believe expectations of future inflation can be self-fulfilling, which means the Fed could be required to lift rates higher than otherwise if those expectations rise.

Mr. Powell said the central bank had to raise rates rapidly, even if that raises the risk of recession, to avoid a worse danger for the economy—of higher inflation becoming entrenched. He said the Fed didn’t have the luxury of [NOW] moving rates up gradually because [THEFEDISWELLBEHINDTHERATESCURVE] of concern that the recent period of high inflation may lead consumers and price setters to expect elevated prices to persist.]]]