The Fed should switch back to a single mandate

The Fed should switch back to a single mandate
The Federal Reserve has a dual mandate to ensure both price stability and maximum employment. The goals of the dual mandate clash making it an impossible balance. The Fed can only fight a war on one front because there is an inherent conflict in trying to keep prices down while simultaneously maximizing employment. It is impossible to maximize employment and not igniting price pressures.
The Fed controls the economy with interest rates. Price stability is controlled by the use of interest rates. The job market thrives when interest rates are low allowing businesses to borrow money cheaply.
Some people will portray the price stability focus as trying to make people unemployed, like Senator Elizabeth Warren. This is a sensationalist and exploitative way to depict the situation that lacks all the subtlety of the actual issues.
Whenever a recession occurs the Fed cuts interest rates facilitating increased investment and spending as a result of cheaper borrowing costs. When the Fed makes borrowing more expensive, people borrow less and spend less.
Many countries do not have a dual mandate. People may argue that these Fed banks may focus too much on low inflation. For example, the European Central Bank does not target employment, only a 2% interest rate.
Monetary policy only has a long-term effect on interest rates, not employment. If people expect a central bank to target employment, they will build that into their forecasts, expecting an easier monetary policy.
It is difficult to both define and measure maximum employment.
The employment market is affected by other factors outside of the Fed’s control. Employment is not as easily controlled by the Fed as inflation.
When you are trying to keep prices down, you are trying to preserve the balance between supply and demand.
We are at a crossroads for Fed policy in general. We need to reverse what happened in the 1970s and return to a sole mandate.
The Fed should only focus on price stability and purchasing power will be preserved.
Legislative action by congress is the only way to change the mandate but the Fed does have some discretion in how it pursues its goals.
The only way to raise the real wealth of the economy is through innovation, increases to productivity, new inventions, things that increase efficiency of the economy which raise productivity given the same inputs.
A single mandate focused on price stability will result in more economic growth in the long run. It will give people confidence that their purchasing power will stay intact.
I agree with Danielle DiMartino Booth, QI Research, when she scrutinizes the viability of the Fed’s dual mandate. Maximizing employment means you are trying to push demand beyond supply versus when you are trying to keep inflation low by balancing demand and supply.
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