by John Tamny
Forbes
Whether it’s actual inflation, or the kind of “inflation” that only economists and their media enablers tend to imagine it to be, a consensus invariably emerges that the Federal Reserve must “raise interest rates” to rein in the lending that has allegedly caused inflation. Translated, price controls from the Federal Reserve to supposedly bring down market prices. Don’t shoot the messenger.
The main thing is that if we ignore the overwhelming fatuity that informs the Fed’s inflation-fighting narrative, the benefit of doing so at least allows for more analysis of how the Fed is allegedly supposed to fight inflation: by restraining banks from making loans at such low rates of interest. The narrative implies that banks are being too “easy,” so the Fed will step in to bring public discipline (in the form of higher interest rates) to where it’s apparently lacking in private.