Inflation is the economic story of the day. And, even though it’s been percolating for over a year, last week the inflation story kicked into high gear with the Federal Reserve making big moves to get rising prices under control. So what changed, exactly?
For starters, a combination of reports showing the worse of inflation isn’t over and that consumers expect inflation to keep rising.
“And so, that was one of the reasons why we saw the Fed do, a bigger rate hike than they were originally expecting, said Victoria Guida, who covers the Federal Reserve for Politico. “It wasn’t just because they wanted to get interest rates up faster, it was also sort of a message to the American public: ‘Hey, we’re really serious about getting inflation back down. So, you know, don’t get it into your heads that inflation is going to stay this high forever.'”
On the show today: How the Fed miscalculated inflation, and why we may not know how well the Fed navigated this moment until years down the road. Plus, we’ll answer a couple of your inflation questions.
Later, we’ll discuss how companies are responding to inflation and the scale of China’s surveillance state.
Then, if you have a hard time remembering the weather in Celsius, a listener shares a hack that’ll make you sound smart in front of your friends. And an answer to the Make Me Smart question that has many of us nodding along.
Here’s everything we talked about today:
- “Failure ‘not an option’: Fed vows all-out fight on inflation” from Politico
- “On Inflation, Economics Has Some Explaining to Do” from The Wall Street Journal
- “Recession-Fearing Bosses Quietly Abandon Open Jobs” from Bloomberg
- “China’s Surveillance State Is Growing. These Documents Reveal How.” from The New York Times
- “Greitens ‘RINO hunting’ ad gets attention and condemnation” from St. Louis Public Radio
Join us tomorrow for Whaddya Wanna Know Wednesday. And if you’ve got a question you’d like us to answer in a future show, email us at makemesmart@marketplace.org or leave us a voice message at (508) 827-6278 or (508) U-B-SMART.