FOMC Minutes - 2025-08-19

The participants' views were all tariffs all the time, including undisciplined anecdotes from "business contacts" and the big lie that goods inflation has already increased, when it fact it collapsed in Q2 (which the FOMC knew, because it was reported with GDP the morning of their meeting). More anecdotes convince them that businesses are so beset by uncertainty that they are afraid to fire workers (wait, we thought when firms were uncertain they always fired workers). So naturally the judgment here is that the risks to the inflation mandate are greater than the risks to the jobs mandate. This is make-it-up-as-you-go-along economics at its worst.