“Fast thinking” is a corrupting short-cut in mental processes which the late Daniel Kahneman identified by experiments in financial decision-making. Fast thinking plagues the market-place as it responds to the new threat of responses to Fed-led inflation. That threat had emerged even before the post-pandemic inflation starting in late 2022 cooled from its peak levels. The most recent surge in prices had materialized even though its symptoms in goods markets were tamed by reversal of earlier supply side dislocations.An often-reported theme illustrating the current inflation angst suggests the Powell Fed will start to cut its policy rate by Summer 2024 out of misplaced complacency or due to political calculation. According to some of the inflation worriers, that rate policy would jar with a
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