Source: Marketwatch —
Inflation has turned out to be not-so-transitory, and the Federal Reserve has its knives out. Well, its hammer, anyway.
Raising interest rates — the U.S. central bank’s primary tool to restrain runaway prices — is a blunt instrument, at best, and until now, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has been reluctant to reach for it, let alone use it.
David Rosenberg expects the Fed’s attack on inflation, which begins Wednesday with the first of an anticipated series of interest-rate increases, to slay the U.S. inflation dragon — at a high cost.
Investors accustomed to easy money and meteoric gains in stocks, real estate and other rate-sensitive assets understandably hope for and even expect the Fed to engineer a Goldilocks-like soft landing for the U.S. economy.
