美联储理事Warsh：通胀过高，若未确信回落将采取行动

Well, it was by far sight more nourishing than his two press conferences. And he did give us a little bit more about the framework and also how he is viewing the economy. He did, I think, a consensus sound much more hawkish. He noted that the economy continues to perform very well despite the obstacles in front of us, and that prices are, frankly, too high. And he confirmed that he's looking at the PC measure, which he had given some doubt about during his most recent press conference.

I think the key line for me, which is informing our forecast, is the if we don't have confidence that inflation is going to be moderating, then we have work to do. I think that if gives him just enough room to look at the numbers that will come in on inflation between now and the FOMC meeting, we think they're going to remain on hold. Because if you forecast inflation out a year absence, something unforeseen could be quite a bit lower than it is today.

Much more manageable. And the fed should probably be able to stay where it is in that event. Yeah. How do you layer into that the concerns about the Middle East War and the expansion that the second round of U.S. strikes in about three days, Iran saying is retaliated. And I think this got attention. President Trump on Truth social saying I couldn't care less if they sign a, uh, uh, worthless, uh, agreement to them. Basically, you know, that's the thing that oil markets have been most concerned about.

Unfortunately, I cannot see the context for a durable truce in the Middle East just because both sides think that they have the advantage at the moment, in order to get a durable agreement, you're going to need a lot of signatures on that paper, not just from Iran and its proxies, the United States, Israel, but Gulf countries and Russia and China have some interests in the region, too. So the terms have to be favorable to them.

So in light of that, it's likely that we'll have flare ups. Hopefully that's all we have. Not a conflagration between, uh, now and let's say six months from now, if you accept that as your central case, gasoline prices as a transition transmission mechanism for inflation here, diesel prices also, uh, factor into the costs of shipping, but they remain elevated. They never really receded when oil went back down to more reasonable levels.

So this latest shock may not put as much more into the price of gasoline. And then there's the question of whether the fed looks through that as in volatile energy price when they think about their inflation target. Um, so while it's unpleasant, it isn't necessarily determining what the fed is going to do. Carl, how do you think about underlying inflation. And you mentioned the fed does have that target of 2%. How valid is that 2% in a world where we're trying to reassure more manufacturing back to the US, that presumably would be inflationary, we're restricting immigration that presumably could be inflationary on wages is a 2% in that kind of world.

Is that still realistic, do you think? It's interesting. We just refreshed our our piece on, uh, inflation targeting 2% was kind of a copycat thing that everybody did after the reserve Bank of New Zealand started in the early 1990s. There's not a lot of science that I've seen around the 2%. What monetary policy theorists would tell you is it's not important necessarily what the target is, but that they stick to it. It's an anchor that, uh, is the core of a reaction function, keeps long term inflation expectations anchored.

And in that it's been a reasonable success. Now, long term trends. You mentioned several of them. On the other side, of course, is the hope that I it's going to produce productivity that will be disinflationary. How all of that mixes together. Well that's going to be interesting to watch. Yeah. Uh, in terms of the G20. So last night. So what is going to make my. I also watch Scott mess and, uh, of course at the G20 who didn't summit it.

Um, and, you know, there's, there's a little bit of tendency to look at everybody else's issues with debt, everybody else's problems with the trade with China. What do you think happens as a consequence? I mean, the US got agreement from 19 countries for a communique, you know, focused on, uh, the concerns around China's trade. How do you think that actually plays out in global economics, though? Yeah, unfortunately, we've had an issue with China's trade policy for a very long time, predating this current Trump administration.

We haven't been able to do anything about it. They have lots of leverage. Uh, when we, uh, hit them with tariffs last year, they said, you know, you need a lot of these rare earths. And now we need more than ever because we have to rebuild our arsenal. They're also threatening the Europeans who are making an issue of dumping of EVs. And they're pushing back on the European Commission. They want to put more controls in place so they have tons of leverage.

We haven't been able to get a reset there without it. We aren't going to get a whole lot of reshoring, nor are we going to get relief from the trade deficit.