POTUS, tell the Fed no more interest rate hikes! Rein in big corps instead!

I know the Fed will meet today, and likely raise interest rates again. I oppose this. To quote Robert Reich: “The Fed should stop believing it can easily stop profit-price inflation by hiking interest rates. It should pause interest-rate hikes long enough to see — and allow the nation to see — they’re harming workers and consumers more than corporations that continue to rake in record profits.”  Reich correctly suggests that the government should use other means to tame inflation. Like what? Like windfall profits taxes as California’s governor Gavin Newsom has proposed for oil companies there, and Representative Ro Khanna and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse have proposed nationally. Like tough antitrust enforcement aimed at reducing the pricing power of big corporations (as Lina Kahn is attempting at the FTC and Jonathan Kanter is trying at the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department). Like a new antitrust law that allows enforcers to bust up big corporations (and prevent them from buying other businesses) when they’re powerful enough to continue raising their prices higher than their costs are rising. Seven Fed rate hikes in just nine months have barely dented corporate power to raise prices and profit margins. The Fed is putting the onus of fighting inflation on workers and consumers rather than on the corporations responsible for it. This is wrong. It’s bad economics. It’s bad politics. And it’s profoundly unfair. Please take the fight where it really belongs—to the giant corporations profiting off of our misery. Thanks.

▶ Created on December 13, 2022 by Jess Craven