The Money Game

Brace Yourselves The pain the Fed is inflicting around the world could hit Americans next.

- Kevin T. Dugan

RECESSIONS HAPPEN. The last one was the shortest on record, but what a blip: About one-sixth of the country lost their jobs over 60 days when COVID hit, and it could have been worse if not for a worldwide plan to subsidize everyone and everything. Twelve years had elapsed since the start of the prior recession-a jerky climb out of a Wall Street-made mess with a Wall Street-made bailout that, in turn, warped an anything-goes national psyche into a distrustful, paranoid one. Now another recession feels all but inevitable just as we're totally out of faith in the government's ability to do anything about it.

The economy today, propped up by stimulus and slowed by a pandemic, is weirder than it has been in decades. There are more jobs available than there are people to perform them, but thanks to inflation, nearly every facet of life outside the office has become increasingly unaffordable, making the point of work a little harder to articulate. The fixes for this range from the never gonna happen, like raising taxes on the wealthy, to the bleak, with the Federal Reserve taking further steps to deliberately downshift the economy. That would push more companies into bankruptcy and force more people into unemployment. Jerome Powell, the Fed chair, has referred to this as "pain," which is apt enough, except that it elides the fact that his central bank is delivering targeted blows. Not everyone will suffer equally. For some, the worst of it will be higher interest payments. For others typically the ones who can least afford it-it'll be the loss of a job.