accused of having delayed too long, the Fed tightens the screw

Washington Correspondent

It’s easier to catch a speckled trout in the Snake River flowing through the upper valley of Jackson Hole than to know whether inflation is dooming the US economy to recession within weeks.

After two editions canceled by the Covid, the fine flower of central banks finds itself like every end of summer for forty years in this lodge in Wyoming facing the splendid Grand Teton massif. The symposium only accepts about 120 participants. Only a dozen journalists are tolerated. The conclave will therefore above all reflect this year on the means of combating inflation without precipitating a serious recession.

“It is very difficult to say with any degree of confidence in normal times what the economy is going to do in six to twelve months,” admitted at the end of July Jerome Powell, the boss of the Fed, the American central bank, adding: “However, we are not in normal times.” His Jackson Hole speech, scheduled for this Friday, is…