Business Post's View

Editorial: Causing a recession to drive down inflation will not do the trick

A short-term slowdown today to create better growth prospects tomorrow would be a cure almost as destructive as the disease

Jerome Powell, the US Federal Reserve Board chairman: said that fighting inflation would ‘result in a sustained period of below-trend growth’ and a rise in unemployment. Picture: Getty

This is going to hurt. That was the message last week from Jerome Powell, chair of the US Federal Reserve, the world’s most important central bank. He was referring to the need to address the most pressing and destructive factor at play in the global economy: inflation.

Powell was speaking at the annual conference of the Kansas City Fed in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, attended by central bank officials from all over the world. He had ...