Summary
NPR piece written during the 2022 post-pandemic rate hike cycle, explaining why the Fed was hiking aggressively by reference to the 1970s experience. Features Princeton economist Alan Blinder on inflation expectations and the self-fulfilling dynamic of 1970s stagflation. Powell explicitly cited his coming-of-age in the 1970s as motivating his aggressiveness.
Key Points
- Powell: “I came of age and studied economics in the 1970s and I remember what that terrible period was like”
- 1970s: prices started rising in mid-1960s; Nixon temporarily froze prices → prices bounced higher when controls lifted
- Ford declared inflation “Public Enemy Number One”; Carter called it most pressing domestic problem — neither stopped it
- Alan Blinder (Princeton, former Fed vice chair): “If you’re a business and you expect the inflation rate to be 5%, you’re likely when it comes time to set the prices for the next year to go up 5%” — expectations become self-fulfilling
- Volcker’s approach: raise rates to 20% to demonstrate seriousness; “the psychology is going to change” — it worked
- Volcker’s medicine: nearly 4 million people lost jobs in back-to-back recessions
- By 1983: inflation retreated to just over 3%
- Key advantage in 2022 vs. 1970s: inflation expectations were not yet baked in; most people expected prices to stabilize
- Powell: “Once that psychology sets in, it tends to perpetuate itself”
Newsletter Angles
- The inflation expectations dynamic is crucial for understanding 2025: Powell’s “one-time price effect” framing on tariffs is essentially betting that tariff inflation won’t become embedded in expectations
- The 2022 parallels to 2025 are instructive: Powell successfully prevented a repeat of the 1970s through aggressive hikes in 2022-2023; now facing a different inflation challenge (supply-driven tariffs) where rate hikes are the wrong tool
- Blinder’s expectations mechanism is one of the clearest explanations of why the Fed’s credibility is worth protecting: credible low-inflation commitments are self-reinforcing
Entities Mentioned
- Jerome Powell — explicitly invokes 1970s memories as motivation
- Paul Volcker — the model of successful inflation fighting
- Arthur Burns — implicit negative foil
- Federal Reserve — institutional context
Concepts Mentioned
- Stagflation — the 1970s outcome being avoided
- Fed Independence — what’s needed for Volcker-style credibility to work
Quotes
“The longer the current bout of high inflation continues, the greater the chance that expectations of higher inflation will become entrenched.” — Jerome Powell (2022)
“At some point this dam is going to break and the psychology is going to change.” — Paul Volcker
“If people believe that prices will be pretty stable, then they will be — because they won’t ask for very high wage increases.” — Powell
Notes
NPR piece from 2022 rate-hike cycle. Still highly relevant to 2025 as background on Powell’s intellectual framework and the 1970s as his north star. The Blinder interview provides good accessible explainer material.