Financial experts warned this week that the U.S. economy is heading straight for a recession and has little to no hope of avoiding such an outcome.
What are the details?
With inflation at a four-decade high and the Federal Reserve increasing interest rates amid cratering economic growth expectations, a recession is now “inevitable,” warned former Federal Reserve Bank of New York president Bill Dudley in an op-ed for Bloomberg News on Tuesday.
Throughout the pandemic, the Fed has employed an ultra-accommodative monetary policy — consisting of low interest rates and substantial quantitative easing — to stabilize the economy. The benefit was low unemployment, but the trade-off was skyrocketing inflation, according to Fortune.
But now in order to curb inflation, the central bank will need to push the unemployment rate higher. The end result, Dudley said, will be a recession.
“The Fed’s application of its framework has left it behind the curve in controlling inflation. This, in turn, has made a hard landing virtually inevitable,” Dudley wrote.
History backs up his assertion. Politico reported on Tuesday that, according to data compiled by investment bank Piper Sandler, “the Fed often stumbles in its efforts to save the day.”
In fact, the report noted, “Nine times since 1961, the central bank has embarked on a series of interest rate increases to rein in inflation. Eight times a recession followed.”
“Not a sterling track record,” Politico assessed. That’s an understatement.
What else?
Adding to the grim economic warnings of an impending recession was news that the U.S. Treasury note yield curve had inverted.
While only a sign, an inverted yield curve is an important one, CNN Business reported, noting the “warning sign” has correctly predicted nearly every recession the U.S. has experienced in the last 60 years.
The outlet explained “an inverted yield curve is often seen as a signal that investors are more nervous about the immediate future than the longer term, spurring interest rates on short-term bonds to move higher than those paid on long-term bonds.”
The unusual distortion is considered a harbinger of bad economic times to come.
“It doesn’t mean a recession is coming,” J.P. Morgan’s Stephanie Roth told CNBC this week. “It just reflects concerns about the future economy.”
Anything else?
In its report on the Fed’s inflation-fixing track record, Politico begrudgingly noted that worries surrounding a recession are “more pronounced” this time around due to “extraordinary circumstances” plaguing the U.S. economy under President Joe Biden.
Such circumstances include historically high inflation, major supply chain disruptions, widespread staffing shortages, and a war in Ukraine that has upended global energy markets.
Americans can feel the pain of a struggling economy and seem ready to hold the Democratic Party accountable in the midterm elections this fall.