Jerome Powell – Opinions

July 10, Michael Davis, economics professor at the Cox School of Business, SMU Dallas, for an op-ed analyzing the latest economic indicators and concluding that this is no time for Americans to get comfortable. Published in the Orange County Register under the heading When the economy satisfies like comfort food, could be time to exit your comfort zone: https://tinyurl.com/4pf2473v

The latest numbers on unemployment remind me of our family’s normal dinner routine.

That’s because we don’t have a normal dinner routine. Our daughter does four sports, one of them year-round. There is dance, homework and — sacred of sacreds — Family Movie Night. Sure, some nights end in a delicious pot roast served the minute the soccer cleats come off. We’d like to think that’s normal. But what about the other nights (OK, many other nights) that end with peanut butter and banana sandwiches eaten in the car?

The employment numbers feel like that pot roast dinner — an economic comfort food moment in a time where the political news is going from weird to weirder.

Continue reading “When the economy satisfies like comfort food, could be time to exit your comfort zone”

July 13, Michael L. Davis, economics professor at the Cox School of Business at SMU Dallas, for an explanatory piece about the failures of our government economic advisors to tamp down inflation and avoid a likely recession. Published in Fox News Business under the heading Inflation surged in June and Americans should be furious at the Axis of Idiocy that created it: https://fxn.ws/3Ol9HFf

By now you’ve seen the news that June inflation hit an annualized rate of 9.1%. And you know that’s bad—not just bad, epically bad, the highest in 41 years. What you may not know is that right now a small army of economists are trying to figure out how best to react. Should they talk about whom to blame or worry about whom to warn?

I say, why choose? Let’s warn about the people who are to blame.

Start with the Federal Reserve. They had one job—ONE JOB! They were supposed to keep inflation from ever getting started. Wednesday’s numbers are yet more evidence of how miserably they failed. And it’s not like they weren’t warned about the consequences of needlessly expansive monetary policy, they just thought they knew better.

Continue reading “Inflation surged in June and Americans should be furious at the Axis of Idiocy that created it”