Bye bye inflation. We hardly knew you… (Zachary Karabell, Sep 20, 2024, The Edgy Optimist)
With the Federal Reserve at last reversing course and lowering short-term interest rates by 50bps this week, we can officially say that a chapter of US economic history has ended. Inflation – the economic monster-under-the-bed, the Sauron of macro, the bogeyman of governments everywhere since the early 20th century, and the purported source of all woes since the orgy of federal pandemic spending in 2020 and 2021 – has receded close to its startlingly low levels of the 2010s. In short, inflation is over.