I'd like to believe all the big brains at the FED have teams of math/finance wiz's crunching these exact same points and would not raise rates if this were the case.
From the article:
>And indeed, higher interest rates may work in the short term, for indirect reasons. If money gets tight enough over a cyclical period, then it could indeed cause a recession and a temporary drop in inflation. The private sector gets squeezed with higher interest expenses and tighter credit standards, and asset prices drop or stagnate.
Fundamental solutions to this situation are incredibly painful and require strong political will accompanied by wide support in society. We do not see it today in the US.
The best solution would be to completely eliminate fiscal deficits (either by raising taxes, or by cutting spending) and simultaneously hike rates. Already issued debt will not be affected by the higher rate, thus resolving the article's dilemma. But good luck selling this solution in today's political environment, especially considering that it will cause a huge recession and painful restructuring of the economy in the short-to-medium term.
So you need to clarify exactly what "got really close to the end of the road" means, because it sounds overly dramatic for no reason.
The rest of your comment reads as imprecise.
The economy can bear higher interest rates. Nothing bad has happened so far. I now think it is an acceptable choice but I still don't like the idea that the central bank is setting the interest rates. In my opinion the central bank should set a low rate but it shouldn't offer banks the ability to borrow at this rate and banks should be trying to get the highest rate possible through competition, not some subsidy by the central bank.
Are high interest rates lowering the cost of groceries, gas, or the cost of living in general? No. Are they blowing up everyone's mortgages one by one as they come up for renewal? Yes. Why am I, an individual, being punished for other's mistakes and mismanagement?
"If you planned on permanently low rates, then that sounds like you have mismanaged your mortgage decisions" this is the kind of tone deaf, consumer blaming crap that is going to get our current government booted out and replaced with a regressive, populist conservative government. Hooray. But I guess they deserve it?
Is this how people refer to making poor decisions now?
Since 2008, this has become a more common refrain from the right, that consumers are to blame.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp-Jw-5Kx8k https://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/24/5-years-later-rick-santelli-...
But it’s also very true that they made the decisions that lead to this.
I’m Canadian so I’m in a similar boat to your country.
We’ve had a terrible government for thr past 10 years and they’ve made terrible spending decisions that have ruined Canada. I like your country, though, we’ll have to wait 3 more years to start to undo the damage the liberals have down to Canada so consider yourself lucky you aren’t from here:(
Rates were at historical lows while a normal Historical rate was around 5%.
If you planned your life around rates that were at levels never seen before then you did make a mistake and people should bear the brunt of that.
That was outright gambling I’d you managed your life around rates not returning to historical norms.
I feel that we should not treat people like helpless children and instead treat them like adults
Limiting inflation doesn't necessarily mean causing deflation.
> Are they blowing up everyone's mortgages one by one as they come up for renewal? Yes.
This is the risk of getting an adjustable rate mortgage, which is a decision.
In many jurisdictions, adjustable rate mortgages are all that are typically available with reasonable rates.
e.g. if I check mortgage rates in Canada, I see 5-year fixed for 4.94%, 5-year variable for 5.79% and 25-year fixed for 9.75%.
If you want to restrict your commentary to the US, you should make that clear in your post, e.g. "This is the risk of getting an adjustable rate mortgage in the US, which is a decision."
Gas is more than 25% higher than it was for all of 2018, 2019, and 2020. It is trending higher, in spite of the pull back from recent highs in the wake of the Ukraine war.
All you have to do is reference Greenspan or Bernanke and what they were saying before the nasty economic events of their time. Those clowns were saying things were largely fine shortly before everything went to shit. They could hardly have been more wrong.