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Federal Reserve chairman says Fed isn’t done fighting inflation

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What will the new Fed chairman do? “Fed governor Christopher Waller said Monday that while inflation could still drift back toward 2% without further tightening, ‘there is still a credible’ chance that upcoming data shows inflation remains elevated or accelerates again,” reports Axios. New Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh testified before Congress yesterday, saying “the members of our committee have no tolerance for persistently elevated inflation.” He reassured lawmakers that they “share a resolute commitment to restoring price stability” but did not outline how.

Another Consumer Price Index (CPI) report was released yesterday, ahead of the Fed meeting later this month. “The data showed that inflation in June cooled sharply as falling energy prices stemming from a temporary truce in the war with Iran dragged down the overall index,” reports The New York Times. “‘Core’ inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy items to give a better sense of the underlying trend, also eased by more than expected.”

“There might be some who look at today’s data and say, ‘Mission accomplished,'” said Warsh. “That is not my view.”

That makes sense: If inflation has cooled in part due to falling energy prices, the resumption of fighting not just over the Strait of Hormuz but also early warning signs that the Gulf of Aden will possibly become a chokepoint for global oil are very big problems indeed. Warsh and co. should take this very seriously and not overextrapolate from the June CPI data, which does not reflect the current state of global affairs.

“Energy prices plunged on the Iran cease-fire and memorandum of understanding,” Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist for BMO Capital Markets, told Reuters. “But with fighting back on in the ​Gulf, the MOU in tatters, and energy prices heading higher again in July, the balance of risks remains more heavily weighted toward a rate hike at some point this year.”

Iran update: “We’re going to hit them very hard tonight; we’re going to hit them very hard tomorrow night; we’re going to hit them very hard the night after,” President Donald Trump told Fox News on Tuesday. “And then next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants. We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.”

Scenes from New York: A website (called, succinctly, “damnlines”) has been created to monitor the wait for various New York hotspots, per that Brock Colyar piece on lines in Curbed. You would think these buzzy froyo spots could simply jack up prices to respond to rising demand.

QUICK HITS

  • “A Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton sold at auction for $50.1 million, making it the most expensive dinosaur ever bought,” reports Semafor. “‘Gus,’ an exceptionally complete specimen with 61% of its bones remaining that was found in 2021 in South Dakota, stands 12 feet tall and is an estimated 67 million years old. The buyer is unknown, but ultra-rich private collectors of fossils are on the rise: The previously most expensive dinosaur was Apex, a stegosaurus, which was bought by hedge fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin. Apex did, however, still end up in a museum—Griffin loaned it to the American Museum of Natural History—while Stan, another T. rex bought for $31.8 million in 2020, is now on display in Abu Dhabi.” I have no problem with “ultra-rich private collectors of fossils” and have a hard time seeing how anyone could.
  • “A top Senate Democrat has requested an investigation into whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. broke a federal law intended to prevent political appointees from interfering in elections,” reports The Washington Post. “Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, filed a complaint Monday with the Office of Special Counsel, a quasi-judicial independent agency that administers the Hatch Act and other civil service rules.”
  • Watch the England-Argentina World Cup game today for possible Malvinas-related chants and fallout. European football regulators would probably ban some of these chants, but FIFA tends to give a little more latitude.
  • Against they/them rhetoric:





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