The Fed Is Frustrated That Its Five-Year Plan Isn’t Working
The post The Fed Is Frustrated That Its Five-Year Plan Isn’t Working appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. The CPI rose 3.7% last month, or was it 2.7%, or 3.3%? Do serious people actually care about a government-constructed basket of goods billed to provide information about market prices? Apparently they do care, judging by the attention paid. Economic archeologists in future centuries will surely marvel at the simple minds who populated the economics profession. Think about it. Imagine government officials in the world’s freest country presuming to understand market prices to begin with, and worse, stop and think that the biggest employer of economists in the world (the Federal Reserve) is filled with PhDs who, according to a post-CPI release Washington Post headline, are frustrated by the “stubborn” nature of the prices reported to them by the CPI’s architects. They want the calculation to come down! Sorry, but how are attempts by central bankers to push down (or push up) prices any different from the Five-Year Plans from the old Soviet Union? Fed officials would no doubt laugh in haughty fashion at the obnoxious conceit exhibited by the Soviet experts old as they presumed to plan output, but they don’t see that the joke is on them. Prices are what govern output in a market economy, or put more bluntly, market prices are what organize a market economy. It’s something to seriously think about. Better yet, hopefully the arrogance that informs the CPI and taming it (or whatever) gains more currency among thinkers in general. For now, both sides of the ideological spectrum follow CPI measures closely, only to make recommendations to the central planners at the Fed on how to act. They’re not serious. Sadly for them, the internet is forever. Because it’s forever, this embrace of government price controls will be around for wiser people in the future to read about, and laugh about. If we…
The post The Fed Is Frustrated That Its Five-Year Plan Isn’t Working appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
The CPI rose 3.7% last month, or was it 2.7%, or 3.3%? Do serious people actually care about a government-constructed basket of goods billed to provide information about market prices? Apparently they do care, judging by the attention paid. Economic archeologists in future centuries will surely marvel at the simple minds who populated the economics profession. Think about it. Imagine government officials in the world’s freest country presuming to understand market prices to begin with, and worse, stop and think that the biggest employer of economists in the world (the Federal Reserve) is filled with PhDs who, according to a post-CPI release Washington Post headline, are frustrated by the “stubborn” nature of the prices reported to them by the CPI’s architects. They want the calculation to come down! Sorry, but how are attempts by central bankers to push down (or push up) prices any different from the Five-Year Plans from the old Soviet Union? Fed officials would no doubt laugh in haughty fashion at the obnoxious conceit exhibited by the Soviet experts old as they presumed to plan output, but they don’t see that the joke is on them. Prices are what govern output in a market economy, or put more bluntly, market prices are what organize a market economy. It’s something to seriously think about. Better yet, hopefully the arrogance that informs the CPI and taming it (or whatever) gains more currency among thinkers in general. For now, both sides of the ideological spectrum follow CPI measures closely, only to make recommendations to the central planners at the Fed on how to act. They’re not serious. Sadly for them, the internet is forever. Because it’s forever, this embrace of government price controls will be around for wiser people in the future to read about, and laugh about. If we…
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