{"id":37382,"date":"2018-09-05T07:00:11","date_gmt":"2018-09-05T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=37382"},"modified":"2018-09-05T07:00:11","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T12:00:11","slug":"chairman-powells-bizarre-statement-ignores-the-reality-of-price-inflation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=37382","title":{"rendered":"Chairman Powell\u2019s Bizarre Statement Ignores the Reality of Price Inflation"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"article_info article_section with_icon\">\n<div class=\"blog-head-line clearfix\">\n<div class=\"post-title-holder\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<div class=\"article_content clearfix entry-content\"><a id=\"dd_start\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.birchgold.com\/news\/jerome-powells-ignores-the-reality-of-price-inflation\">Chairman Powell\u2019s Bizarre Statement Ignores the Reality of Price Inflation<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12814\" src=\"https:\/\/www.birchgold.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/jerome-federal-reserve.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.birchgold.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/jerome-federal-reserve.png 600w, https:\/\/www.birchgold.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/jerome-federal-reserve-300x225.png 300w\" alt=\"jerome powell and inflation\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/h3>\n<p>Inflation has been on the rise since late 2015. According to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) measure, the Fed has typically maintained the \u201ctarget inflation\u201d rate of 2%.<\/p>\n<p>But official inflation has moved well past that benchmark. It is currently <strong>nearing 3%<\/strong> while rising at a consistent and alarming rate (see chart below):<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12808 size-full alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.birchgold.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/cpi-fred.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 951px) 100vw, 951px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.birchgold.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/cpi-fred.png 951w, https:\/\/www.birchgold.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/cpi-fred-300x123.png 300w, https:\/\/www.birchgold.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/cpi-fred-768x316.png 768w\" alt=\"consumer price index\" width=\"951\" height=\"391\" \/><\/p>\n<p>During strong economic growth, this inflationary cycle is common. And if you look only at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2018\/01\/12\/trump-economys-sustained-growth-pace-unlike-anything-seen-in-13-years.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">numbers on their surface<\/a>, the illusion of a strong economy is what someone would see.<\/p>\n<p>But all that changes once you look behind the curtain\u2026<\/p>\n<p>The economic outlook is uncertain at best with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.birchgold.com\/news\/us-trade-wars-grows-into-currency-war\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">trade wars<\/a>, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.birchgold.com\/news\/iran-sanctions-emerging-markets-and-end-of-dollar-dominance\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">declining dollar<\/a>, and a credit market suspiciously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.birchgold.com\/news\/impending-recession-follows-a-similar-script-from-2008\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">following a script<\/a> from 2008.<\/p>\n<p>And the U.S. economic woes don\u2019t stop there. Corporations are adding to the troubles with what seem to be an act of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.birchgold.com\/news\/corporate-crash-insurance-looks-more-like-sleight-of-hand\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sleight of hand<\/a> with certain tax loopholes.<\/p>\n<p>All of these challenges to what appears to be a \u201cstrong\u201d economy can bring it crashing down like a pile of bricks.<\/p>\n<p>But despite all this, Fed Chairman Powell <a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalreserve.gov\/newsevents\/speech\/powell20180824a.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">delivered a speech<\/a> on August 24 that contained a disturbing \u201cWizard-of-Oz\u201d-like message.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cPay No Attention to the Inflation Behind the Curtain\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes you have to wonder whether <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economicpolicyjournal.com\/2018\/08\/fed-chairman-jay-powells-nutty-theory.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Fed isn\u2019t telling us something about inflation<\/a>, or if they\u2019re simply ignoring reality altogether.<\/p>\n<p>Case in point: during the speech delivered by Chairman Powell, he made a rather odd statement (emphasis and paragraph breaks ours):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When longer-term inflation expectations are <strong>anchored<\/strong>, unanticipated developments may push inflation up or down, but people expect that inflation will return fairly promptly to the desired value. This is the key insight at the heart of the widespread adoption of inflation targeting by central banks in the wake of the Great Inflation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chairman Powell\u2019s Bizarre Statement Ignores the Reality of Price Inflation Inflation has been on the rise since late 2015. According to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) measure, the Fed has typically maintained the \u201ctarget inflation\u201d rate of 2%. But official inflation has moved well past that benchmark. It is currently nearing 3% while rising at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[18769,1055,172,303,426,16888,3650],"class_list":["post-37382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-birch-gold-group","tag-consumer-price-index","tag-cpi","tag-fed","tag-inflation","tag-jerome-powell","tag-us-federal-reserve"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37382"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37383,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37382\/revisions\/37383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}