Author: George Yacik

Let's Get Serious

Posted on by George Yacik

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell indicated strongly last week that the Fed will likely raise interest rates by 50 basis points at its next meeting on May 3-4. It will likely get more aggressive in its fight against 8%-plus inflation. It’s going to have to because just as fast as the Fed is trying to bail water out of the boat, the White House and Congress are determined to keep pouring it in.

“It is appropriate in my view to be moving a little more quickly” to raise rates than the Fed has recently, Powell said last Thursday at an International Monetary Fund event. “Fifty basis points will be on the table for the May meeting,” he said. That would double the 25-basis point increase at its March meeting, which now looks relatively puny compared to the yield on the 10-year Treasury, which is rapidly approaching a three-handle for the first time since 2018.

St. Louis Fed president James Bullard, suddenly the most hawkish voting member on the Fed’s monetary policy committee, said he thinks a 75-basis point hike is more appropriate. However, he conceded that “more than 50 basis points is not my base case at this point.” Still, 50 bps is a lot better than 25 bps in bringing the Fed’s target closer to the so-called neutral rate, which is when Fed policy is neither accommodative nor restrictive, and the Fed is nowhere near that (although no one really knows what the magic number is). With six more meetings to go this year, including May’s, 50 bps at each meeting would push the fed funds rate above 3%.

That seems awfully aggressive, given the Powell Fed’s generally dovish inclinations. Still, it may have no choice given that Continue reading "Let's Get Serious" →

Fighting The Eternal Fire

Posted on by George Yacik

The Federal Reserve’s vaunted independence, which we heard so much about during the Trump Administration but very little so far under President Biden, will be put to the test this year as it battles 1980s-style inflation during an election year. Will the Fed fight vigorously to fight inflation that now totals an annualized 8.5% according to the March consumer price index, as it now insists it will, or will it suddenly wimp out just before November 8 if it senses that raising interest rates to the point of recession is a cure worse than the inflation disease?

Needless to say, the Fed is just as guilty as the fiscal authorities for creating runaway inflation, no, we can only blame some of this on Vladimir Putin. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, with just a couple of short, minor pauses, the Fed has kept interest rates artificially low and pumped trillions of dollars into the economy long after any emergency justified it doing so. Now, finally, the Fed has come to the realization that monetary accommodation has gone on too far and too long and is now ready to tap on the brakes. It’s already begun the interest rate raising process and will soon start reducing “at a rapid pace” its $9 trillion balance sheet, according to Fed Vice Chair designate and current Fed Governor Lael Brainard.

“It is of paramount importance to get inflation down,” the formerly dovish Brainard said recently at a Minneapolis Fed conference. Continue reading "Fighting The Eternal Fire" →

Now It Begins, But How Will It End?

Posted on by George Yacik

As expected, the Federal Reserve raised its target interest rate by 25 basis points last Wednesday, as Fed Chair Jerome Powell said two weeks ago that it would do. What was surprising was that the Fed also telegraphed that it plans to raise rates six more times this year, to at least 1.75% by the end of this year, and four times next year, with fed funds ending at around 2.75% by the end of 2023.

That was a lot more aggressive than some observers, including this one, had expected. Yet the market seemed happy with it. After a brief initial sell-off, stocks soon resumed their upward path, apparently because they liked the certainty it provided, at least for now, as well as the gradual nature of the Fed’s schedule.

But how certain can we be? Will the Fed really carry through with this, or will it revert to its easy-money ways? And even if it does do what it says it plans to do, will it be enough to get inflation under control while at the same time avoiding pushing the economy into recession?

We’ll have to wait and see. Continue reading "Now It Begins, But How Will It End?" →

Powell To The Rescue, Yet Again

Posted on by George Yacik

Over the past several years, Modern Monetary Theory has become de facto U.S. government economic policy. To refresh your memory, MMT posits that the government can spend as much money as it likes without worrying about how to pay for it because essentially, it owes the money to itself, plus it can simply print more money as needed. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, the U.S. has done that mainly through the Federal Reserve, which has seen its balance sheet balloon to $9 trillion as the national debt has swelled to $30 trillion.

The only constraint on government spending, according to MMT, is when inflation gets out of hand, at which time the government should impose tax increases and reestablish equilibrium. There doesn't appear to be any magic number for what constitutes worrisome inflation, but reasonable people surely believe we have already reached that point, which should mean that the time is right to start raising taxes.

Not surprisingly, recent converts to MMT only really like the first part of the theory since it gives the government license to spend freely and not have to worry about the consequences. Now, however, MMT is being put fully to the test; inflation is here.

As we have seen, though, there is absolutely no interest in Washington to raise taxes to fight inflation and pay for out-of-control spending. Instead, we are now beholden to the two people, namely President Biden and Fed chair Jerome Powell, most responsible for creating the inflationary pressures in the first place to stuff the inflationary genie back into the bottle. Can they do it? Continue reading "Powell To The Rescue, Yet Again" →

Is The Powell Put dead? Maybe Not

Posted on by George Yacik

Last week a bevy of Federal Reserve officials led by New York Fed President John Williams, "who is one of the most senior advisers to Chairman Jerome Powell and helps shape the policy agenda," in the words of the Wall Street Journal, tried to talk down the market's concern that the Fed is about to ratchet up interest rates aggressively, starting with a 50-basis point hike at its next meeting March 15-16.

"There's really no kind of compelling argument that you have to be faster right in the beginning" with rate increases, Williams said last Friday. "There's no need to do something 'extra' at the beginning of the process of liftoff. We can…steadily move up interest rates and reassess. I don't feel a need that we'd have to move really fast at the beginning."

The 50 bp talk got started by St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, who had said earlier that "the best response to this situation [meaning the recent surge in inflation to 40-year highs] is to front-load the removal of accommodation." That provoked a large selloff in the stock and bond markets. Subsequently, several Fed officials and regional bank presidents, including Williams, pushed back on that assessment, saying that the Fed would take a more measured approach to raising rates. The desired path now seems to be a 25-bp increase at the March meeting, following which the Fed would see what effect that would have before taking the next step. Continue reading "Is The Powell Put dead? Maybe Not" →