Acting Labor Sec’y: Rate Hikes Are Hurting a Lot of People, People ‘Continue to Feel’ ‘Pain’

[mystery-ak]

Acting Labor Sec’y: Rate Hikes Are Hurting a Lot of People, People ‘Continue to Feel’ ‘Pain’

Ian Hanchett 8 Jul 2023

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Ana Cabrera Reports,” acting Labor Secretary Julie Su acknowledged that the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates to tame inflation is hurting many people and stated that “We should acknowledge some of the pain that Americans continue to feel.”

Host Ana Cabrera asked, “Markets are reacting to today’s news, still down slightly this morning. Wall Street expects another interest rate hike…mortgage rates are already way up. Credit card rates are up. This is hurting a lot of Americans. What’s the answer?”

Su responded, “I think that’s right. We should acknowledge some of the pain that Americans continue to feel. Remember, just three years ago, we were deep in a pandemic, and the economic catastrophe that associated — that came with it. I think part of the answer, though, is to continue to do what the President said. Let’s finish this job. Let’s continue to create good jobs in communities all across the country, let’s create pathways so people who have been left out of the labor market before can get those good jobs, and let’s continue to focus on bringing down inflation, bringing down costs of living so that Americans can feel this in their homes, at the grocery stores, and at the kitchen table.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/07/08/acting-labor-secy-rate-hikes-are-hurting-a-lot-of-people-people-continue-to-feel-pain/

[mystery-ak]

Summers: We’ve Seen Transitory Inflation Elements Fade, We’ll Need More Rate Hikes

During an interview aired on Friday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Wall Street Week,” Harvard Professor, economist, Director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama, and Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton Larry Summers predicted that the Federal Reserve will have to hike interest rates more and that we’ve seen a decline in elements of inflation that were transitory and have declined from a rate of inflation that was never sustainable in the long term.

Summers said, “[W]e haven’t really recognized that it’s a basic feature of the inflation process, that while you get transitory fluctuations, you don’t stop an underlying wage inflation without having a significant slowdown in economic activity. And since we haven’t yet had a significant slowdown in economic activity, it shouldn’t be surprising that we’ve still got inflation well above target. Nor should anybody take comfort from the fact that the components of inflation that everybody recognized were transitory, the fact that they’ve come down, and in some cases even gone into reverse, is better than if they hadn’t, much better than if they hadn’t. But nobody ever thought we were an underlying 8% inflation country when we were having 8% inflation. So, the fact that the rate has come down shouldn’t be confused with saying that we can be confident that we’re on a path to this all being okay and certainly not with saying that we’re can be — we can be confident that we’re on a path to this all being okay without the Fed doing more to raise rates.”

He continued, “So, anything’s possible, and all of these judgments, David, are statistical. … But I think the best guess has to be that the Fed’s going to have to raise rates more, that if the Fed wants to see inflation get back to its target, it’s going to have to raise rates enough that, at some point, the economy suffers a downturn. And I’ve said it many times on your show before, but I don’t see anything that changes my mind from the view that soft landings represent the triumph of hope over experience.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/07/08/summers-weve-seen-transitory-inflation-elements-fade-well-need-more-rate-hikes/

[Kamaji]

Inflation hurts people, too.  We are, unfortunately, stuck between the Scylla and Charybdis of inflation and rising interest rates, a conundrum that is almost wholly the making of Trump and Biden.

A lot of us are going to be hurt economically until this resolves itself; just as a lot of us were hurt economically in the 1970s and early 1980s, until the Reagan-era reforms squashed runaway inflation and the Volker interest increases were reduced after they had helped to slay that inflation.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

I’m feeling the most squeeze I’ve felt in decades. Some of it is due to having one income and needing a new well this year.