Several months after the US Federal Reserve began describing the country’s inflation problem as “transitory”, the central bank is finally admitting that rapidly rising prices of goods and services are a serious threat to the American economy and its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The problem is the Fed’s response, three modest interest rate hikes by the end of 2022, lifting rates to between three-quarters of a percent to 1%, is woefully inadequate for this level of inflation. Arguably the Fed has been “behind the curve” from the beginning. It should have foreseen that half a trillion dollars in direct ... (full story)