Armchair economists, can you cut rate with rising prices?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's going to be quite an exciting time! Well, a well-timed war should get the money flowing again.

Trump apparently ordered two nuclear armed submarines to the coast of Russia because Medvedev called Trump poopy pants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. Bad idea. It would be disastrous- given today’s job report and tariff circus, the often-talked about Recession is finally upon us.

I don’t know how businesses or ordinary people prepare for the next three years. Trump just fired the Commissioner of Labor and Statistics, accusing her of releasing fake job numbers. He said he will appoint someone who will provide the real numbers. Infer what you want from that statement about real job numbers. I know what it means to me-les, lies, and made up favorable numbers and not the actual truth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rates are not that high and should not be cut. We need people to be saving more money. People are still spending money; if rates were cut they'd spend even more and prices would rise faster than wages.

Also, I think JPow will never cut rates during this administration out of spite. He's not wrong for refusing to cut though.

I agree Powell has every reason to hate Trump because Trump is being a giant dick to him. Maybe I am naive but I think of Powell as a true technocrat that will take the course of action supported by the data regardless of politics and personal feelings. That and the other FOMC members will vote against him if he is wrong.

Agree, although he will of course have to include political analysis in what he does. He has to thread the needle he has been threading so far of doing the right thing while also keeping himself in the job through next June. If someone like Hassett is the next Chair, we are well and truly f---ed.

This is not directly related to this thread but I have been surprised by the fact the folks doing the biggest damage to our economy in this administration graduated from the colleges (Yale, Harvard, etc) that many of us want our kids to attend. What is it about their training from these universities that they make them mean, greedy, indifferent to the have nots etc ?

Mostly correlation, not causation. The kids who are already rich and powerful and drunk on their own importance (which is most of the people you are talking about) network together and gather dirt on each other and reinforce their little prejudices about everyone who didn't "work hard enough" to be where they are now. They are assured a safe landing after graduation, one way or another, so school is a different experience for them than it is for the stereotypical hard luck case who got a big break to attend HYP. That second category may not even encounter the first category much at all.

However, I do think it matters that higher education is not very idealistic. It has been in fashion at most universities to be cynical about law and politics and the financial system - treating everything like a game where the rules are made up and the point is to find workarounds or dunk on somebody. Ideas like "stability is good, actually" or "a reasonable year-over-year profit is all most businesses should aim for" have not been taught for a long while, at any university. And most students never take a class in civics or U.S. economic history, and their high school history classes usually breezed through anything after the 1970s, so people genuinely are not educated about how any of this has worked (or not worked) in the past.