There seems to be serious chatter that the Federal Reserve might actually do something useful to slow inflation.
The inflation numbers are just too big to hide, revise or ignore.
But with so many trillions of debt in the system is the Fed going to find an excuse not to raise rates?
This time it really doesn't seem they have any choice.
But perhaps the Fed Chair could ring the RBNZ’s Governor Orr for advice.
After all, in New Zealand dollar terms, Orr's annual pay packet is 3.33 times higher than Jerome Powell's annual salary which obviously reflects the vastly greater responsibilities of running the RBNZ (sarcasm).
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has said that in March, 2022 the US CPI rose 1.2%. It also said that the CPI was 8.5% for the year to the end of the same month.
The Dow Jones index last Friday dropped 2.82%.
Dow Jones Index:
The other indices were affected as well.
The commodities gold and oil also dropped but by smaller percentages than the US stock indices did.
All US Indices:
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets again on May 4 & 5 (next month).
Look for a 50 basis points (0.50%) rise in the Federal Funds Rate in the increasingly likely event that the FOMC at last shows some mettle.