With stock and property prices once again setting records, Jerome Powell may face some agonizing trade-offs
What if low inflation calls for low interest rates but those low interest rates make an eventual, destructive asset bust more likely? Should he lean against an incipient bubble by raising rates faster now, or plan to mop up the mess if assets collapse later?
.. no divine coincidence dictates that the same interest rate will achieve both 2% inflation and a stable financial system.
.. Before the global financial crisis, they concluded no: pre-emptively pricking bubbles seemed much riskier than letting them burst of their own accord. They are less dogmatic now.
.. In a 2015 speech, he said: “Tighter monetary policy might eventually be necessary” if dangerous risk-taking reappeared. A year ago, he went further: “The current extended period of very low nominal rates calls for a high degree of vigilance.”
The case for vigilance has only grown since.
The Fed Isn’t the Tax Cut’s Enemy
Officials are open to the possibility that the tax cut will raise the economy’s potential growth rate, although it isn’t their base case
conventional wisdom is that this is the wrong time for Republicans to cut taxes by $1.4 trillion over the next decade. The fiscal stimulus will overheat the economy and force the Federal Reserve to slow it down by raising interest rates more aggressively.
inflation is still too low, and that completely changes the equation: It suggests overheating is to be welcomed, not resisted.
officials are open to the possibility that the tax cut will raise the economy’s potential growth rate, which means faster growth wouldn’t necessarily lead to more inflation.
.. Ms. Yellen and her likely successor, Fed governor Jerome Powell, aren’t yet the party poopers many supply-side tax cut advocates feared.
.. [Larry Kudlow: ] The real test, he said, is how the Fed reacts if growth tops 3%
.. By 2020 Fed officials expect their benchmark federal-funds rate to reach 3.1%, which would be above the 2.8% they expect to prevail in a fully-employed economy growing normally
.. Ms. Yellen made it clear she didn’t agree with Mr. Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that the tax cut would pay for itself, and warned it may be “taking what is already a significant [debt] problem and making it worse.”
Dudley Says Fed Has Started Thinking About Official Digital Currency
Some academics have called for the Fed to offer its own digital currency. They believe it would afford the central bank better control over the economy by tweaking interest rates at the consumer level, bypassing fickle financial markets that often work at cross-purposes with Fed policy aims.
Supporters of official digital money say the central bank could end up being pushed off the sidelines if private efforts eventually succeed on a mass scale.
Fed’s Dudley Warns Against Overly Aggressive Regulation Roll Back
When it comes to change, Mr. Dudley said alterations of existing laws and regulations should be done with a “paring knife, rather than with a meat cleaver.” Maintaining higher capital and liquidity requirements for too-big-to-fail banks remains critical, he said.
Central clearing for derivatives securities should also be retained, and a continuing role for the Fed as an important regulator remains critical. Mr. Dudley also wants the Financial Stability Oversight Council to keep its ability to name nonfinancial firms as systemically important and eligible for increased government oversight.
.. the Volcker rule, which limits certain types of trading for banks, should get a “less burdensome” implementation.