Powell’s problem is all the more evident when viewed through the inflation-adjusted lens of real interest rates. Over the 51 months of his leadership of the Fed (through April 2022), the real federal funds rate has averaged -1.95% (with a stress on the minus sign). This extraordinary monetary accommodation is unmatched in modern times. The real funds rate averaged -0.05% for eight years under Burns, -0.7% during Bernanke’s eight-year tenure, and -0.9% for four years under his successor, Janet Yellen.
Under Volcker, by comparison, the real federal funds rate averaged 4.4% for eight years (with a stress on the positive sign). Moreover, notwithstanding the Powell Fed’s newfound determination to move swiftly to counter what it belatedly views as a serious inflation problem, I suspect that the federal funds rate will remain below the US inflation rate well into 2023. That would push the Powell average down to -2.25% over the 59 months ending in December 2022.
No, I am not arguing that Powell needs to replicate Volcker’s tightening campaign. But if the Fed wishes to avoid a replay of the stagflation of the late 1970s and early 1980s, it needs to recognize the extraordinary gulf between Volcker’s 4.4% real interest rate and Powell’s -2.25%. It is delusional to believe that such a wildly accommodative policy trajectory can solve America’s worst inflation problem in a generation.
Like Volcker, Powell takes his mission of public service very seriously. Unfortunately, as Bentsen might have said, that is where the comparison ends.
Stephen S. Roach, former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and the firm's chief economist, is a senior fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute of Global Affairs and a senior lecturer at Yale's School of Management. He is the author of "Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China."