The Federal Reserve quickly switched gears between December 2018 and March 2019 as policy became “patient” and the two rate hikes projected for 2019 fell to zero. The backdrop for the shift was stumbling markets, softer growth data, and falling inflation. Fed officials find the turnaround of inflation particularly worrisome. Since adopting an inflation target in 2012, the Fed, in the words of Chairman Jerome Powell, has not “convincingly achieved our 2 percent mandate in a symmetrical way.” The failure of the Fed to meet its self-defined inflation objective yields a number of both short- and long-term negative ... (full story)