In January 2016, everything came to a head. The oil price crash (2nd time), currency chaos, global turmoil, and even a second stock market liquidation were all being absorbed by the global economy. The disruptions were far worse overseas, thus the global part of global turmoil, but the US economy, too, was showing clear signs of distress. A manufacturing recession had emerged which would only ever be the case on weak demand.
But the Fed just the month before had finally “raised rates” for the first time in a decade, though after procrastinating all through 2015. Still, surely these wise, proficient technocrats wouldn’t be so careless and clueless as to act in this way during a serious downturn. After all, what are “rate hikes” but the central bank’s shifting concerns toward a faster economy perhaps reaching the proportions of overheating.
The dissonance was striking, nowhere more so than at the Federal Reserve itself. On the day the FOMC voted for the first of what was supposed to be (by now) ten to fifteen increases (not just four) the central bank also released estimates on US Industrial Production that were negative year-over-year, a condition that just doesn’t happen outside of either a recession or a condition very close to one.
The mainstream sided easily and eagerly with the technocrats. Even as the Fed failed to act month after month, the word “transitory” printed prominently in each article rationalizing why a manufacturing recession just wouldn’t matter, the media would claim how “strong” and “resilient” especially US consumers were.
I often wondered then ,as now, just who was the audience for those pieces; the public, or the media itself. Flipping through them, these always positive stories read almost as if the person writing them was trying to convince himself or herself. “It can’t be bad, the Fed just raised rates.” Dissonance.
