Thread

Fed hikes rates as inflation worries push up bond yields

184 points · 250 comments · wslh

dabinat · 1789588567 · focus · HN ↗
Prediction: this causes a recession in two years, right after a Democrat wins the White House, who will be blamed for it. The economy will turn around after a few years, just in time for a Republican to win and claim they fixed it.
This is how Republicans have a reputation for being economically savvy despite actual evidence to the contrary, because the general population doesn’t understand that economics runs on a time delay.
1. phendrenad2 · 1789589091 · focus · HN ↗
  "Global depression imminent, here's what it means for this poor American political party"
2. vasco · 1789589161 · focus · HN ↗
  Easy fix, have the democrats lose the next election and you break the spell. It's all military industrial complex anyway.
  1. beej71 · 1789589260 · focus · HN ↗
    I wish they'd lost in 2020, that's for sure.
    eej71 · 1789589765 · focus · HN ↗
    Hello similarly named account.
    I basically agree. I don't care for DJT, but I can see how getting his "second term" underway after his first one could have been better. His four years away allowed him to stew and plan and respond.
    bdangubic · 1789598264 · focus · HN ↗
    you stopped mid-sentence mate - “… to stew and plan on how to pillage as much as possible from Americans before he rides off into the sunset”
    beej71 · 1789665630 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes. Even Trump has talked about this.
    exe34 · 1789589827 · focus · HN ↗
    Would have thinned the herd nicely by botching COVID and saved a ton on welfare.
3. jimmar · 1789589213 · focus · HN ↗
  So, you're aligned with President Trump who wants to cut rates, then?
  1. hedora · 1789589827 · focus · HN ↗
    I read the comment as: Trump’s policies are all forcing the US into stagflation so hard the fed has to do this, knowing it’ll cause a recession.
    Fed actions typically take a few years to be felt, regardless of administration.
4. hirako2000 · 1789589246 · focus · HN ↗
  I doubt it will take 2 years as other ingredients are already at play.
5. jameslk · 1789589453 · focus · HN ↗
  Both parties are responsible for the inflation and debt. Fiscal policy is largely driven by congress, not the president
  1. [deleted] · 1789589734 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
  2. matteoraso · 1789590079 · focus · HN ↗
    And which party controls congress? I'll give you a hint: It's the party that spent decades advocating for irresponsible tax cuts without cutting spending[0].
    [0] Yes, I know that the Republicans said that they were going to cut spending to match the tax cuts, but that never ends up happening.
    jameslk · 1789590474 · focus · HN ↗
    The high inflation since Covid and $40 trillion in debt didn’t happen under one party
    owebmaster · 1789590706 · focus · HN ↗
    But just one wins elections promising they will reducing it
    jameslk · 1789591113 · focus · HN ↗
    Neither party has realistic plans to reduce the debt. It’s been that way for decades. Kicking the can down the road gets more votes
    watwut · 1789593850 · focus · HN ↗
    It was democrat who ended with surplus. This is not both sides issue. This very much "conservatives make things worst and hide behind both sides".
    chucksta · 1789591232 · focus · HN ↗
    What's the other promising to do with it?
    atmavatar · 1789591785 · focus · HN ↗
    The (vast?) majority of the debt happened as the result of the Republican party both increasing spending and cutting taxes every time it lands someone in the White House and before midterms flip the House back to Democrats.
    There's a fair argument to be made that the Democrats could/should have reversed these disastrous fiscal policies when they gained power, but it's important to be wary of Murc's Law while also acknowledging doing so would also burn a lot of political capital Democrats never seem to have much of.
    The American electorate is a grade school child constantly evaluating which parent it likes the most. One tells you that you can eat as much candy as you like and play video games all night (neither of which hit you until the following day), while the other occasionally tells you to eat your vegetables, do your homework, and clean your room.
    jameslk · 1789594167 · focus · HN ↗
    > The (vast?) majority of the debt happened as the result of the Republican party both increasing spending and cutting taxes every time it lands someone in the White House and before midterms flip the House back to Democrats.
    Both parties have run an increasing deficit, with the only outlier being a small amount of time in the late 90s. The deficit is largely caused by social security outlays, medicare/medicaid outlays, and military spending, none of which are going to meaningfully change under either party
    sbohacek · 1789601591 · focus · HN ↗
    Maybe you mean something different, but not every recent president has "run an increasing deficit" Reagan: +74B Bush: +103B Clinton: -382B Bush: +1.5T Obama: -747B Trump: +2.1T Biden: -1T
    Where change in deficit is the final budget deficit - starting budget deficit
    So, every Republican president runs an increasing deficit and every Democrat president runs a decreasing deficit.
    jameslk · 1789612256 · focus · HN ↗
    Congress is the one that largely makes the fiscal policy choices. For example, during Clinton’s second term when the deficit was almost eliminated (some claim there was a surplus, but there wasn’t because of social security liabilities), you had a republican controlled congress who were pushing for cuts and fiscal tightening:
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America
    cbolton · 1789637126 · focus · HN ↗
    The republican program was in large part vetoed by Clinton though and the spending cuts that passed were largely offset by the tax cuts. From what I read the reduction in deficit is mostly due to the dot-com boom, helped with the "deficit reduction act" of 1993 that was pushed by Clinton and happened to hike taxes at the right time to tax the boom.
    carefree-bob · 1789602011 · focus · HN ↗
    Under Bill Clinton, in 2000 we ran a (small) surplus, but even then, the shock of running a surplus hid the fact that the debt increased during his term overall. That was the last president in which there was even one year of the debt decreasing, all other presidents increased the debt. Here is data:
    <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/2496/national-debt-growth-by-year" rel="nofollow">https://www.macrotrends.net/2496/national-debt-growth-by-yea...
    matteoraso · 1789592271 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm a lot more sympathetic to Joe Biden temporarily causing a spike in inflation while helping America recover from a horrible pandemic than Republicans habitually running the country off of debt.
    jameslk · 1789593248 · focus · HN ↗
    Joe Biden didn’t cause a spike in inflation, congress did. And the policies that caused it wasn’t under Joe Biden’s term
    Also, inflation wasn’t temporary
    throw0101a · 1789597764 · focus · HN ↗
    > The high inflation since Covid and $40 trillion in debt didn’t happen under one party
    Between his first term and his second term to date (2+ more years to go), Trump is responsible for more that one quarter (29%) of US debt (USD 11.6T / 40T):
    * <a href="https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/national-debt-trump-biden/" rel="nofollow">https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/national-debt-trump-bide...
    There was a bit of a mitigating circumstance of COVID (for Trump and Biden), which caused the debt to jump for many countries as well (and not just the US), but it's not like Trump et co are helping the math along with all the tax cuts and asking for a US$ >1T military budget.
    But I would say a large reason why the US is in the fiscal position it is now in is because of Trump and a GOP Congress. (See also tax cuts under Bush 43 and Reagan; Bush 41 raised them a bit.)
    DoesntMatter22 · 1789591267 · focus · HN ↗
    Partly it doesn't happen because you can't really get much done even if you have a majority. You really end up needing a super majority.
    The one thing both parties agree on though is running up a massive deficit
    disgruntledphd2 · 1789633233 · focus · HN ↗
    > You really end up needing a super majority.
    Assuming you're talking about the Senate filibuster, then this can be changed or removed by simple majority vote. It's not in the Constitution, just a rule that the Senate adopted.
    Like, personally I think that even sans filibuster, the Senate would move much slower than the House, because of election cycles.
  3. UncleOxidant · 1789592471 · focus · HN ↗
    This president single-handedly raised tariffs on goods from all over the world.
    jameslk · 1789592779 · focus · HN ↗
    High inflation and large debt preceded the tariffs. That said, the tariffs didn’t help either. That’s why I said largely
    Ultimately the president is enabled or constrained by laws enacted by congress
    RickJWagner · 1789606125 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes. It is a tax. He raised a tax.
    You might argue it is inflationary.
    carefree-bob · 1789606845 · focus · HN ↗
    By that logic, interest rate hikes should be inflationary.
    It is highly unusual to argue that taxation is inflationary since the whole point of inflation is to reduce demand.
    RickJWagner · 1789676923 · focus · HN ↗
    The whole point of inflation is to reduce demand? Please further explain, including your ideas about causes and effects.
    tmountain · 1789649133 · focus · HN ↗
    You might argue it is illegal.
  4. kccoder · 1789610461 · focus · HN ↗
    The BBB, Iran war, and tariffs, something done solely by republicans, sometimes just the president, are the source of inflation, so you can attribute this situation mostly on Trump, and fully on republicans.
    jameslk · 1789613606 · focus · HN ↗
    Higher inflation rates started before any of those, but those things didn’t help
  5. khriss · 1789632393 · focus · HN ↗
    I wonder which party's presidents have started all the trillion dollar wars in the past 30 years.....
  6. Steltek · 1789663043 · focus · HN ↗
    False.
    On an earlier HN economic story, someone provided data showing that this is entirely the responsibility of Republican administrations. Going back to Eisenhower, the Deficit has only increased under Republican Presidents and only decreased under Democratic ones (with one exception, Johnson was slightly positive in Deficit increase).
    <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49714491">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49714491
    jameslk · 1789668928 · focus · HN ↗
    A rando on the internet that put together a table of presidents and numbers has no bearing on facts, it falsifies nothing
    Presidents cannot pass fiscal policy. They can only sign or veto new fiscal policies or act on existing policies passed by congress that give them fiscal latitude
    I’ve explained this many times in this thread. We’ve reached the heat death of useful discussion so this will be my final comment in this thread
6. daviding · 1789589486 · focus · HN ↗
  (deleted, political, no point)
  1. ndesaulniers · 1789589679 · focus · HN ↗
    > The important thing is really who's on the girl's soccer team
    I've not heard this expression before; can someone explain it to me?
    mig39 · 1789589876 · focus · HN ↗
    I think they're referring to the obsession that some people have to trans issues.
    almostjazz · 1789589894 · focus · HN ↗
    I may be wrong but I think they are referring to the Republican party's position on trans athletes in sports (literally, who is allowed on a girls sports team) being the only thing that matters to some voters.
    ron_woods · 1789589988 · focus · HN ↗
    Its a joke where all Republicans care about is winning the culture wars. Meaning there are boys on the girls sports teams who identify as girls. Its to get the base mad and get them to vote (supposedly).
7. marcosdumay · 1789589576 · focus · HN ↗
  It's interesting that this article doesn't have the rate...
  (It moved from 3.5% - 3.75% to 3.75% - 4%, the US uses a range, not a fixed number.)
  But this one is something that gets results almost immediately. We will see what it does in 2 or 3 months, not years.
  1. karp773 · 1789593934 · focus · HN ↗
    What results? Overnight interbank loan rates, yes, immediately. The effect of those rates on the economy? It will take time to propagate. Heck, some important committees only meet like twice a year.
    marcosdumay · 1789595095 · focus · HN ↗
    > What results?
    Inflation numbers, companies firing, and the magnitude of fictional numbers on financial markets.
    Lots and lots of things are slower to react, but those 3 are quite big and hard to ignore.
    carefree-bob · 1789601294 · focus · HN ↗
    Layoffs are abnormally low right now, well below the rate a decade before 2020.
    Here is data: <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDR" rel="nofollow">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDR
    Inflation is a bit higher, but not shockingly so, here is the data:
    <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL#" rel="nofollow">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL#
    In terms of "fictional numbers on wall street", I don't see any real data there, but if you have access to something then please share.
  2. Animats · 1789631670 · focus · HN ↗
    The current official US inflation rate is 3.4%. So the real interest rate is under 1%.
    marcosdumay · 1789661673 · focus · HN ↗
    The most relevant comparison is the short term treasure rates, that is currently at 4% for 3 months.
    What means that the US is still paying banks to take loans. They just fixed it so it pays very, very little.
8. dyauspitr · 1789589592 · focus · HN ↗
  This exact scenario has happened 4 times in my living memory already.
9. bdangubic · 1789589616 · focus · HN ↗
  I would upvote this 100x if I could. There are decades of evidence of this same thing happening but people be people'ing every 2-4 years :)
10. Scottn1 · 1789589622 · focus · HN ↗
  At what point into a presidential term does it become their actual mess? And is there evidence of a time delay? Because by that argument, the mess we are in would been caused by Democrats.
  1. jfengel · 1789589895 · focus · HN ↗
    Usually, months to years. The economy is a very big ship and slow to steer.
    This particular crisis is quite abrupt, caused by a sharp jump in the price of oil. Most presidents don't really deserve either the credit or fault that they receive on the economy, but in this case there's a very clear and direct connection.
  2. ryathal · 1789590568 · focus · HN ↗
    All good is due to MyParty, all bad is due to OtherParty.
  3. HWR_14 · 1789592814 · focus · HN ↗
    There's not a constant cutoff. It depends a lot on what the president and the administration do. Does the president push the button and start nuclear war? They are the primary driver for the new economy. Does the president continue the same policies that were working for the last decade and continue to work for the length of their presidency? They might never be the primary driver.
  4. xboxnolifes · 1789594433 · focus · HN ↗
    Depending on who you ask, the mess we are in is caused by Democrats.
  5. RickJWagner · 1789605866 · focus · HN ↗
    Arbitrarily decided by the person with political convictions blinding them.
    Yes, it happens to both sides. People convince themselves their side always makes right decisions, the other side always wrong.
    The truth is that the secret sauce is in the pendulum going back and forth. The excesses of one side are soon erased by the other. It is working, as it has for many years.
11. hedora · 1789589668 · focus · HN ↗
  Exactly like “biden’s” inflation from the zero interest rate policy.
12. Aboutplants · 1789589706 · focus · HN ↗
  We will enter a recession in less than two years, the R timing on this one isn’t going to work out
13. trashface · 1789590046 · focus · HN ↗
  Another possibility is recession in next two years, but its brief enough that recovery starts before 2028 election - republicans take credit and voters believe it - JD Vance gets elected president.
  I recall reading something from axios or similar, talking about how a CEO said a "nice light recession right now would be perfect for us" or something to that effect.
14. seanmcdirmid · 1789590179 · focus · HN ↗
  No, this will probably fall apart before Trump is out of office and a Democrat will be expected to clean up his mess again.
  1. tmountain · 1789649233 · focus · HN ↗
    It’s optimistic to assume that a Democrat will be permitted to hold the office of the President. It came down to Mike Pence last time, and things have changed a lot since then.
15. AnimalMuppet · 1789590434 · focus · HN ↗
  But not doing this would, in two years, cause (or at least allow) inflation that would cause harm, too. But Trump might get blamed in that case, because inflation would increase for the next two years, and so people would experience the pain during his term.
  1. UncleOxidant · 1789592691 · focus · HN ↗
    But this being supply shock induced inflation means that raising rates will likely have little effect on lowering inflation.
16. impure · 1789591849 · focus · HN ↗
  Wouldn’t surprise me if it was a lot sooner given skyrocketing fuel costs, high bond yields, and unsustainable AI spending.
17. UncleOxidant · 1789592303 · focus · HN ↗
  > Prediction: this causes a recession in two years
  "this" (raising the fed rate by .25%) is not what causes a recession in 2 years, it's what led to "this" (the ill-advised, badly-planned, Iran war) + tariffs + popping AI bubble that will do that.
18. swed420 · 1789594011 · focus · HN ↗
  > This is how Republicans have a reputation for being economically savvy despite actual evidence to the contrary, because the general population doesn’t understand that economics runs on a time delay.
  And it's how Democrats have a reputation for being the "wrongly victimized underdog / misunderstood savior" despite actual evidence to the contrary, because the general population doesn’t understand that economics runs on a time delay.
19. carefree-bob · 1789594347 · focus · HN ↗
  A 0.25% rate hike is going to cause a recession? How, exactly, would that happen?
  Honestly it seems your post is heavy on politics but I am not seeing an actual argument anywhere in there.
  My canned response to people being upset at various policies or ratios, whether it is inflation, or bond yields, or market movements, is to ask them what they think the correct value should be. Stop complaining about the movement and instead ask them for their target. You think a 4% FedFunds is too high or too low? What do you think the correct value is and why? You think the stock market is too high or too low, what do you think the correct value of the index should be?
  Most people, who were just moments ago vociferously complaining about a movement, when asked this question fall silent, because they have no idea what the target should be, and because they have no idea about the target, they really have no business complaining about movement. Instead, they use the movement as a springboard to air their ideological beefs. But if you are going to tie some thesis to a rate hike, you better be able to explain what you think the correct rate should be and why. I'm waiting.
  Personally, I think a 4% rate is perfectly fine. 5% may even be warranted, and historically this has not been a high rate, if you assume, say, 2.5% inflation and 2% GDP growth, this is a pretty reasonable place to be.
  1. aftbit · 1789594769 · focus · HN ↗
    I dunno about the politics, but personally I don't think there is a generic "correct" value. The rate describes the state of the world, and the "correct" value is whatever accurately describes the state of the world.
    There is a separate question though - is that state of the world good or bad for people? Is it better or worse today than it was yesterday? What can we do - collectively - to push it in a direction that best serves our collective interests? These are valid questions to ask, and I think each takes us further in the direction of politics.
    unified101 · 1789597375 · focus · HN ↗
    I personally don't think there's a correct concept of money. Money describes how happy I feel, and the correct money I should have is whatever describes my current mood.
    So what can we collective do with money so I feel most happy. This may be the most important question of all to ask.
    pjc50 · 1789637357 · focus · HN ↗
    ^ This is unironically how the median voter responds to all this policy.
  2. quickthrowman · 1789594793 · focus · HN ↗
    > A 0.25% rate hike is going to cause a recession? How, exactly, would that happen?
    I didn’t see anyone claim a single 25 bps hike will cause a recession.
    The 30 day FFR futures (/ZQ) curve is pricing in an 80% chance of two more hikes by the March 2027 meeting and a 70% chance of 3 or 4 hikes by Sept 2027’s meeting. So, 50 bps predicted in the next 6 months and 25-50 bps more within one year.
    Source is the CME Fedwatch tool: <a href="https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch...
    I think we’ll need to go to 5%+ within the next two years if fuel costs remain elevated.
    carefree-bob · 1789596238 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, I think 5% will eventually happen, but I don't think we'll get there before the mid-terms, the Fed moves slowly.
    Basically you have an inflation shock and you want the reaction function to be higher, so if inflation is 1% too high, you want a 1.5% or 2% rate hike. If inflation is 1% too low, you want a 1.5% or 2% rate cut. The reaction function has to be greater than the deviation from target, but this gives you price stability, it doesn't require a recession, although it may cause a recession.
    smackeyacky · 1789596316 · focus · HN ↗
    I don’t understand why central banks seem to use such a blunt object like interest rates for every inflation problem. It would make sense to rise if the cause of inflation was accelerated economic activity, not price rises due to supply restrictions. How does hurting mortgage holders even more help with not starting wars? All it can do is have a double dampening effect on the economy as people pull back their discretionary spending.
    Using interest rates for this kind of inflation is guaranteed to cause a recession.
    carefree-bob · 1789596736 · focus · HN ↗
    Central banks didn't use to do this, in the post-war period up until about 1980, they tried targeting the monetary aggregates like M2.
    Unfortunately they discovered that the size of monetary aggregates was outside the control of central banks, these were demand determined by the public's desire for money balances. So all attempts to control the growth of monetary aggregates failed.
    Having an inability to control anything else, the central banks turned to the one thing they could control -- overnight interest interest rates, and from that, bond yields more generally. That is the one tool in their toolbox.
    Do you think other tools exist?
    smackeyacky · 1789597730 · focus · HN ↗
    I don’t think we have a wide enough Overton window when it comes to economic discussions, the neoliberal revolution of the 1970s killed a lot of little levers of economic control in most post social democratic countries. Instead we were promised a new age of free trade and economic liberalism and one single, shiny lever to control the speed of the economy like the governor on a steam train.
    Yet here we are 50 years later suffering booms and busts just like before. Nobody seems to want to acknowledge the failure of 50 years of industrialisation destruction that in hindsight was the inevitable outcome of open trade and the retreat of governments.
    To answer the question, yes I think there are other options and trade barriers need to be part of that conversation.
    rich_sasha · 1789613488 · focus · HN ↗
    It’s not entirely true. There’s plenty more levers on economy and inflation. This is the main one that central banks have.
    For the elephant in the room, the current inflation woes are caused by oil price increase, which is a direct outcome of deliberate US policy.
    pjc50 · 1789638271 · focus · HN ↗
    Bob is correct here. The other tool people keep forgetting about is fiscal policy; government deficit spending is inflationary, and the US is currently running a very large deficit and was floating even more inflationary ideas like directly bribing voters to vote Republican in the midterms.
    Really the problem is that everyone wants to make lots of money (economic growth) so they can spend more (increase consumption) but without anyone else raising their prices as a result. Unsquareable circle.
    fireflash38 · 1789644395 · focus · HN ↗
    He's right about interest rates. But he's missing the point behind the debate: whose policy choices got us to where we are today where this is necessary? Republicans.
    Not just Trump, Republicans as a whole. They are not fiscally conservative at all, and their culture wars and religious crusades are going to bankrupt the nation.
    They'll sell you up a rope to corporate donors asking for deregulation. And we've seen exactly what happens when there is money to be made at the expense of other people's lives: spoiler alert, people like money more than they care about other people's health.
    what · 1789598232 · focus · HN ↗
    > hurting mortgage holders
    How does raising rates hurt mortgage holders? They locked in their interest rate when they got the mortgage?
    metajack · 1789601012 · focus · HN ↗
    Not all mortgages are fixed rate.
    carefree-bob · 1789601534 · focus · HN ↗
    95% of mortgages are fixed rate in the US. And even that number is too low, most of the ARMs are taken out by businesses, not households.
    HWR_14 · 1789618204 · focus · HN ↗
    It's not good for the economy when no one is willing to move for the next 20-30 years. And it's not good for the people who are unable to move to chase a better job as well.
  3. ProfessorLayton · 1789595121 · focus · HN ↗
    >My canned response to people being upset at various policies or ratios, whether it is inflation, or bond yields, or market movements, is to ask them what they think the correct value should be.
    Maybe find a better canned response? US debt has never been higher, and because of this even rates that are below historic highs can cause economic chaos.
    carefree-bob · 1789596038 · focus · HN ↗
    Did you ever think that the reason why US debt is so high is because rates are so low and borrowing is so cheap? Higher rates are needed, and are really the only mechanism to reduce borrowing.
    We are seeing asset bubbles across the board in this economy, in housing, in equities, auto loans, etc. It turns out that if you make something cheap, people buy more of it, and that includes the government.
    ProfessorLayton · 1789596609 · focus · HN ↗
    I agree with you, and this is much better than your previous "canned response". However, this goes back to my earlier point that even historically low rates can cause economic chaos if the debt is high enough.
  4. snapplebobapple · 1789604009 · focus · HN ↗
    At this point its probably more like 12% temporarily because the more correct way to measure it is to take the 1980s inflation measure (from before all the medelling to make it artificially lower) and raise rates by 25 bips every quarter until that number is zero, then back it off slowly
  5. esalman · 1789611868 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't think numbers matter here.
    Bond prices shooting up is a result of market losing trust in US, or it's ability to not default.
    Dollar is famous backed by $700T military. But the world has seen how it failed to secure a strait.
    The current US government has broken all kind of promises. I want to highlight two in particular - free trade and immigration.
    World economy has benefited for decades on the promises of free trade. The tariffs have eroded the promise and trust.
    The government is also openly supporting elements who are hostile to immigrants. Immigrants are the backbone of US economy, has been for over hundred years. Immigrating to the US requires years of preparation, long term planning, and giving up on other luxuries and opportunities. When the government starts breaking promises by changing rules and moving the goalposts overnight, it discourages participation.
    carefree-bob · 1789612233 · focus · HN ↗
    The dollar is not "backed" by a military. China has a huge military and no one uses the Yuan for third party trade. Why not? Because China does not run trade deficits that allow third parties to acquire the Yuan in the first place, it does not have open capital markets that allow third parties to store their surpluses in Yuan, and it does not have the investor protections that give investors confidence that they can pull their savings out whenever they want.
    You know a nation that does have those things other than the US? Switzerland, which is why a lot of people use swiss Francs, even though Switzerland does not have a huge military. People need to stop reading Graber and others who have no economic training and don't understand global balance of payment accounting. Having a large military does not translate into people wanting your currency, otherwise China, North Korea, and Russia would have well used international currencies, rather than being forced to use the currency of their rivals.
    esalman · 1789613011 · focus · HN ↗
    Your points are valid. But there's a reason why dollar is "petrodollar" - when we say it's backed by US military it's really the axis of US-Israel-Saudi Arabia which control military as well as resources. People use US dollar not necessarily because they want, but because they have to. I also do not know who Graber is but I'll look it up.
    dpc050505 · 1789652289 · focus · HN ↗
    The petrodollar system resolved the 70s inflation crisis after Nixon sent the head of the CIA to Saudi Arabia. The US military backed revolutionaries during the arab spring because the dead dictators wanted to start a pan-african currency with which to trade oil. Iran, Venezuela and Russia were under sanctions and treated as enemies in very big part because they were selling oil for other currencies than the USD.
    The US dollar is propped up by constant US dollar liquidity related to the fact that you need it to trade significant quantities of oil with the vast majority of producers. That situation was held up by the US' military might. Starting shit with Iran and being unable to finish it means there's no reason for oil producing countries to keep financing american debt on the cheap. What are they going to do? Restrict their own access to crude?
    There's more to it, but the USD for gas scheme is a big structural chunk of the financial house of card. You break that and the rest won't hold up very long. And it's not like other structural parts of what makes the USD the global reserve currency aren't getting eroded either. Fed independence stands there glaringly obvious.
    lenkite · 1789670457 · focus · HN ↗
    The dollar is most certainly backed by military of the Corporate States. This is eminently observable to the rest of the world, who tend to get "regime changed" when the talk comes about not using the USD.
    The leaked, then, declassified emails about Gaddafi and how his "Gold Dinar" was considered a threat really opens your eyes on why the Corporate States maintains a very big stick to hit anyone they don't like in the world and most especially nations who were foolish enough to disarm, stupidly trusting the Corporate States.
  6. [deleted] · 1789631677 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
  7. pjc50 · 1789637712 · focus · HN ↗
    > is to ask them what they think the correct value should be
    This is Hacker News, we should understand what a PID controller is.
    The economy is the "plant". The variable of interest, inflation, is the output of the plant. The government interest rate is the input. As inflation varies around the target FOMC rate, the Fed adjusts the rate. If inflation is over 2%, we should expect rate hikes, regardless of what the current rate is.
    This is a fairly simple and very effective system that has worked in most Western countries and the Eurozone since the 90s.
    However, note that the "recession" claim is also partly correct: the reason rate hikes work to reduce inflation is that they move the economy growth rate down, in the direction of (but not necessarily into!) recession.
  8. SideburnsOfDoom · 1789643809 · focus · HN ↗
    > A 0.25% rate hike is going to cause a recession?
    Firstly a rate hike is as much a reaction to circumstances as it is a cause. It follows changes to the financial environment. As much as the current US Administration wanted a rate drop, circumstances dictated the opposite.
    Secondly, it might not be isolated. These rates move by small increments, but there are usually several moves in succession, up to 8 times a year. Compare two or three small hikes to two or three small drops and the difference starts to add up. "A 0.25% rate hike" is small, but it indicates a change in direction. The article notes that it is "for the first time since 2023".
  9. datsci_est_2015 · 1789645481 · focus · HN ↗
    Bring this energetic criticism onto Warsh, whose speech was nauseatingly political in comparison to his predecessor. Paraphrasing ~ “I’m not data-driven, I’m trend-driven”. Frankly speaking, he sounded like a dumbass who failed his way upwards into a position of meaningful power, much like the rest of the government at the moment. Warsh also refused to give a target or a forecast.
    The OP that you’re criticizing is simply making a prediction, and he doesn’t work at the fed.
    almog · 1789647407 · focus · HN ↗
    It was hard to watch and ended abruptly. Perhaps the only 2 reporters that kind of tried to challenge the contradictions in his approach were Nick Timiraos and Michael McKee.
    I think that one obvious question that no one asked him, is why not cancel the post FOMC press conference if he opposes forward guidance and won't even explain what data guides his vote when asked about it.
  10. bryanlarsen · 1789653691 · focus · HN ↗
    A 0.25% rate hike might be the straw that breaks the camel's back. There are a lot of stressors on the economy right now. I don't think it's going to take too many more to tip it. And once it tips, it'll pop bubbles that'll magnify the recession significantly.
  11. stasomatic · 1789740808 · focus · HN ↗
    I think there is more of a physiological component to it on the consumer level. I don't care about the fed rate but I care when I see the price of milk and eggs go up each a couple of months. In 2020, a carton of eggs at Aldi's was $0.79. Now it is $4. My income didn't grow 4x, but I am bit thinner now. Never mind housing.
20. Forgeties79 · 1789597730 · focus · HN ↗
  One of the more baffling things in the most recent version of that cycle was Biden being solely blamed for inflation - in particular the finger pointing over checks exactly like the ones that went out under trump.
21. mikewarot · 1789616530 · focus · HN ↗
  I think this could be the thing that finally pops the AI circular financing bubble, leading to World Depression II. I'm not sure either of the existing 2 faces of the duopoly infesting politics will survive, and there's a non-zero chance this breaks civilization as supply chains collapse, and we enter a new dark ages.
  1. disgruntledphd2 · 1789633339 · focus · HN ↗
    > leading to World Depression II
    This is very, very unlikely. The US would probably suffer more, given how much AI related expenditure there is. The EZ mostly wouldn't notice, and China is already basically in a depression that it's desperately trying to export its way out of (which seems unlikely without them doing something about all the underwater property debt).
    vdomi · 1789642495 · focus · HN ↗
    > China is already basically in a depression You gotta expand on that, chief.
    disgruntledphd2 · 1789649751 · focus · HN ↗
    So, their property sector essentially collapsed from 2019-21, vaporising much of the wealth possessed by many Chinese people (who were often buying expensive flats of the plans).
    As a result of this many local government pushed money into car/electronics/whatever export industries. This lead to vicious competition, and many of the exporters are tapped out of Chinese markets (vicious competition) so they are attempting to export as much as possible (which is rational).
    Looking at things more broadly, one could argue that lots of the reason for the vicious competition is precisely that many Chinese people are still in loads of debt from the property bust (much like Irish/Greek/Spanish people were after their property busts).
    The central government is pushing the exporting companies hard, as they don't want to have to inject loads of money into the economy (apart from local support of exporters).
    This makes sense from the government perspective as they want to be able to build everything that they need (so the US/EU can't screw them), but it's pretty bad for the chinese people, many of whom are not spending (there's been some deflation over the past 5 years).
    So, in many ways the Chinese economy is not in a good state, even lots of the exporters/industrial companies are doing badly, hence why they are focusing on exports.
    And because Xi is basically leader for life, the likelihood is that these policies won't change until he dies.

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