Doug Henwood wrote:
> This is true for hourly workers, but there's been a considerable
> pickup in wage growth at the high end. Skilled workers, say
> employers, are in short supply, and their pay is getting bid up. It's
> a bifurcated labor market.
Hmm. I've seen 3% wage growth in the last six years and I think I've got looked-for skills.
> Another wrinkle: the line after the 1979 oil shock was that the Fed
> would never again indulge sharp rises in energy prices. The way to
> bring down oil prices is to engineer a recession. They never hint at
> this publicly, much less mention it explicitly, but it's possible
> they also want to nip the commodity price spike in the bud.
That makes sense.
> That said, Bernanke keeps changing his story every day, even when
> he's not in the presence of the destabilizing Maria Bartiromo.
Well, every Fed chief needs a strategy. Greenspan's was impenetrable language. This was perfectly captured by a New Yorker cartoon that showed him hunched over a microphone saying "T'was brillig and the slity toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe, fifty basis points."
I guess our man Bernanke can't match that so instead, he flip flops.
Joanna