Commentary
‘Tis the season for articles that look back at the past year and forward to the next. For this look, it seems as though an extremely ambiguous and consequently frustrating 2022 will give way to a greater resolution in 2023.
Last year’s economy certainly created frustration. Take the path of inflation. It was severe and persistent enough to convince Washington to dispense with the 2021 nonsense that the price pressures were merely “transitory.” But a lingering and misplaced impulse to blame everything on Vladimir Putin kept alive an unrealistic hope that inflationary pressures would dissipate on their own.
The economy looked weak enough to raise widespread concerns of a recession but not so weak that policy postures changed, either in the White House or Congress. Federal Reserve (Fed) policy, which started 2022 with an air of insouciance, then suddenly became harshly anti-inflationary in the middle of the year, ended 2022 with talk of moderation….