The Fed’s Most Convenient Lie: a CPI Charade
The comments below are an edited and abridged synopsis of an article by Matthew Piepenberg
Despite a penchant for double-speak that would make a politician blush, the Fed tells us that its primary focus is unemployment, not inflation.
An openly nervous Fed Chair Powell, however, came out in the summer of 2020 with a specific agenda to allow higher inflation above the 2% rate.
This new inflation direction ignored the larger irony that the Fed had been (unsuccessfully) targeting 2% inflation for years before changing verbs from ‘targeting’ to ‘allowing.’
Such magical word choices reveal a critical skunk in the Fed’s semantic wood pile.
If, for example, the Fed was honestly targeting inflation with no success for years, how could Powell suddenly have the public ability to then allow more of what he failed to achieve before, as if inflation was as simple to dial up and down as a thermostat in one’s home?
Up for discussion: Dishonest inflation reporting; necessity—the mother of invention; having your cake and eating it, too; even Frankenstein eventually dies; the pablum continues; and the Fed—gold’s best friend.