ANALYSIS | Joe Biden wants to show that he is taking care of inflation…while he shows that someone else is taking care of it

Sales of luxury goods increase in the US 1:26 New York (CNN Business) — President Joe Biden will meet with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Tuesday in a kind of performative politics that, almost certainly, it will do nothing to make it easier for Americans to afford everyday items.
And, let’s face it, it probably won’t do anything for Biden’s poll numbers either, because the results Biden wants from the meeting are contradictory: This is the dilemma Biden faced in his op-ed published Monday in the The Wall Street Journal, outlining his three-part plan to deal with inflation (we add some bold for emphasis): “That’s why I’ve made fighting inflation my top economic priority. My plan consists of three The parties: First, the Federal Reserve bears primary responsibility for controlling inflation. My predecessor demoted the Federal Reserve, and past presidents have tried to inappropriately influence its decisions during periods of high inflation. I don’t. I will do”. Biden acknowledged that he does have some influence over the Fed, appointing “highly qualified people from both parties to run that institution.” But usually he doesn’t start the plan by saying, “This is my highest priority,” followed immediately by, “That’s why I’m going to let those guys over there take care of it.” To be fair to Biden, his predecessors have also met with Fed chairmen. And there really is very little a chairman can do on his own to curb inflation. Supply chain problems, war in Europe, lockdowns in China, and labor shortages are beyond what a single pen stroke can fix. And the Fed has certainly made life difficult for Biden. Economists agree that the Fed was too slow to crack down on inflation, pointlessly calling it “transient” until just a few months ago (duh!) and raising interest rates only after inflation peaked. of four decades. Now, at last, the Fed is clamping down on inflation. Economists (and investors, have you been watching the stock market lately?) worry that the Federal Reserve may be too late, and that a double dose of painkillers could send the economy into a recession. Of course, external factors and the Fed are not entirely to blame. Biden helped fuel inflation with a round of stimulus checks in March 2021. Most of that money is now off the payroll, reducing the deficit in the process, a fact Biden loves to bring up (he was the point number 3 in the opinion piece). But it’s not like he woke up one day and suddenly became a deficit hawk: Biden was pushing a $3.5 trillion economic plan and more Covid aid not too long ago. A Pointless Meeting This may be the most pointless White House meeting since Kanye West met with former President Donald Trump to launch a hydrogen-powered Air Force One plane. It is, in a way, extraordinary, and extraordinarily silly. There’s a good reason the president doesn’t usually meet with the Fed chairman: he assumes the Fed is nonpartisan and apolitical, and that it’s acting in the best interests of all Americans and the economy as a whole. Their non-interference gives stability to the market and sends the message that it is data, and not politics, that rules. The president appoints people to the Fed, but then he can quietly complain about them like the rest of us. So there is something inherently wrong with the president, not just Biden, meeting with the Fed chairman. And yet presidents keep doing it anyway. Though still relatively rare, presidents have called Fed chairmen to the Oval Office in each of the recent past administrations: Trump met with Powell in 2019. Former President Barack Obama met with then-President Janet Yellen in 2016 and with his predecessor Ben Bernanke in 2011. Former President George W. Bush met with former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan on several occasions. Trump, of course, broke with that “hands-off” tradition by incessantly tweeting at Powell about cutting interest rates (which Powell eventually did when the covid pandemic hit and kept them low when the economy heated up). again, which is what the economists say got us into this mess of inflation, so….) Biden is decidedly not doing that. But he continues to make the same mistake past presidents have made in calling Powell to the White House: He’s trying to have both, and it’s not clear who the audience for this meeting is. Biden will be able to say that he has met with Powell to talk about inflation (I guess he is great), but he will also be able to remind America that the Federal Reserve is taking care of the situation.
Gasoline, meanwhile, is still $5 a gallon, and none of this makes us feel much better.