TIP - Larry Summers Says Declaring 'Proverbial Soft Landing' Is 'Premature' Asserts Inflation Still A 'Source of Concern' | Benzinga
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said on Friday that inflation continues to remain the most important risks in the year ahead.
Inflation Risk Lingers: The outcome as far as inflation is concerned came closer to the prediction of Team Transitory, said Summers in an interview with Bloomberg. Team Transitory, led by Nobel laureate Paul Krugman had argued that the inflationary pressure seen since the aftermath of COVID-19 pandemic was transitory, engendered by supply chain challenges.
Summers said he never viewed the U.S. as a 7% or 8% inflation country, as the bottlenecks that led to the spike in inflation were bound to come down, subtracting from inflation. That said, he did not view the Fed’s inflation norm as a prudent number.
”I’m not sure we’re really a 2% target inflation country in any durable sense,” Summers said, pointing to the 5.2% wage increase the federal government announced for 2024, still-tight ...