I don't pretend to be an economist. My Econ 101 professor barely spoke a word of English. That deflated my enthusiasm for pursuing economics in an academic setting. But I don't need a Ph.D. in economics to know that, over the past two decades, the Fed has been royally screwing up and that those blunders were eventually going to hurt Americans. Above is a chart of the federal funds rate - the interest rate set by the Fed and a benchmark for many other interest rates. You can see that, as far back as the late 1950s, the rate vacillated. Sometimes it was high; sometimes it was low. Then the financial crisis hit in 2008. With the economy on the brink of collapse, the Fed lowered rates to zero. I had no problem with that. Drastic problems call for drastic measures. But these days, in the era of participation trophies - when no one is ever allowed to experience any negative feelings - the Fed kept rates at zero for years despite a recovering economy. Granted, the last decade wasn't a boom time. But it didn't need to be. Surely, in the 50 years prior, we had periods of slow growth and not once was the federal funds rate at zero. The Fed finally got a backbone and started lifting rates toward the end of the last decade. And we know what happened next. The economy shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so the Fed lowered rates back to zero - again, an appropriate response. What was not appropriate was the Fed leaving rates at zero for so long, once again, as the economy was roaring back to life. In the January 2021 issue of my newsletter, The Oxford Income Letter, I said rock-bottom interest rates, combined with other forces, meant that inflation would take off in 2021. You didn't need to be an Ivy League-trained economist to realize that the combination of low interest rates, never-ending stimulus checks and the reopening economy was going to push demand for goods and services through the roof. Add in supply chain issues, and we were looking at a can't-miss recipe for high inflation. Only, the Fed did miss - like the Yankees' left fielder Joey Gallo chasing a slider 6 inches out of the strike zone. | 
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