Jerome Powell Says He Can’t Promise ‘Soft Landing’ Amid Skyrocketing Inflation
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Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, said in an interview on Thursday that there is a “strong desire” at the Fed to get inflation under control in the U.S. and promised to deliver.
But he also admitted that Americans should brace themselves for “some pain.”
“But ultimately the most painful thing would be if we were to fail to deal with it and inflation were to get entrenched in the economy at high levels, and we know what that’s like,” he told Marketplace.org. “And that’s just people losing the value of their paycheck to high inflation and, ultimately, we’d have to go through a much deeper downturn. And so we really need to avoid that.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Wednesday that consumer prices rose by 0.3 percent last month compared to March, when it rose by 1.2 percent. The inflation rate rose 8.3 percent in April. The number in March was 8.5 percent. Inflation is still at a 40-year high and the worst could be yet to come.
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 103.81 points on Thursday, or 0.3 percent, to 31,730.30. The S&P 500 lost 5.10 points to end the day at 3,930.08, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 6.72 points to 11,370.96. Nasdaq has lost 24 percent of its value since November.
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"If you had perfect hindsight you’d go back and it probably would have been better for us to have raised rates a little sooner," Powell admitted. "We have to make decisions in real time, based on what we know then."
Gerald Celente, the publisher of The Trends Journal, has been critical of Powell for downplaying the inflation threat for over a year, brushing it off as “transitory.” Celente addressed Powell’s comment in the interview that it is his top priority to get inflation under control.
“Hey, f-ckface,” Celente said. “How come it wasn't a priority when inflation’s been going up now for over a year and you've been shooting out your sh-t and those little f-cks (presstitutes) have been swallowing it and repeating” that inflation was only transitory?
Powell pledged that the central bank will use its full array of tools and act expeditiously to contain rising prices and get inflation back to about 2 percent.
TRENDPOST: In “ECB Economist Does a 180 on Inflation” (22 Feb 2022), we diagnosed Powell’s condition as “Central Bankster Syndrome,” marked by the compulsion to see soaring prices as “temporary” or “transitory” until long after inflation has rampaged through the economy unchecked.
At his December 2020 press conference, Powell pointed to “disinflationary pressures around the globe” and said “it’s not going to be easy to have inflation move up.”
A month later, with inflation on the move well above the Fed’s 2-percent target rate, Powell said it was only “temporary.”
In July, with inflation running at 5 percent, Powell told a Congressional committee that “we really do believe that these things will come down of their own accord as the economy reopens,” he noted.
ICYMI:
I started taking Celente's three Gs advice over ten years ago. In hindsight his advice has turned out golden. Thanks.