Honesty is a virtue

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said the Fed’s recent moves are giving lawmakers an excuse to avoid making hard choices on fiscal policy, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

“The more we offer accommodative monetary policy, the less incentive they have to pull their socks up and do what’s right for the American people,” Fisher told the news service in an interview.

The U.S. economy is “almost on a knife’s edge” and could end up tripping into “negative territory,” he added, saying that there aren’t enough jobs being created.

However, Fisher said, there is “enormous potential” for job creation despite the recent stagnation. Businesses have “driven cost reduction to the max, and the biggest cost factor’s labor,” he told the AP. “So a lot of them are going to be unable to expand when final sales finally start to pick up without hiring people. And I think that ramp-up could occur rather rapidly.”

Fisher, a self-professed “inflation hawk,” also said he isn’t worried about the current level of inflation. “I’d like to see it a bit lower, but I don’t want to see deflation,” he told the news service.

Like a shark that smells blood in the water. Translation of 1st 2 paragraphs: "All we need to do is push up interest rates a little and social security is ours." Thanks for making that explicit.

The 4th paragraph is funny for a different reason. It's nice to hear that finally the erosion of labor has maxed out, and we're due for the much-promised broad-based economic growth any time now. Question: with employment reduction driven to the max (and especially if he gets his way and tightens monetary policy), where the hell is the expansion in final sales supposed to come from?