ECONOMY/FEDERAL RESERVE: “The United States has a problem: not enough inflation.
That notion is a bit of a head-scratcher. Most people don’t like inflation. They would prefer that a dollar tomorrow be worth the same as a dollar today.
But a recent drop in inflation may be a sign of fresh economic weakness and is perplexing to Federal Reserve officials who are now wrapping up the central bank’s stimulus campaign.
The Federal Reserve thinks modest inflation has important economic benefits, and it has aimed since 2012 to keep prices rising at an annual pace of 2 percent. The problem is that the Fed is on track to fail for the sixth straight year. Inflation has been stubbornly sluggish.
A little inflation can brighten the economic mood, causing wages and corporate profits to rise more quickly. Economists like to point out that this is an illusion. If everyone is making more money, then no one can buy more stuff. Prices just go up. But the evidence suggests people enjoy the illusion and, importantly, they respond to the illusion by behaving in ways that increase actual economic growth, for example by working harder.”
-Binyamin Appelbaum, “U.S. Inflation Remains Low, and That’s a Problem,” The New York Times online, July 24, 2017