NPR.

So the big economic news of today is essential that we bring inflation down if we

was that Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, the US Central Bank announced

the Fed was raising interest rates by three quarters of a percentage point that ongoing

increases in that rate will be appropriate.

1.75, this is the highest rate increase we've had since 1994.

It's meant to bring down high price inflation by making it harder for everybody to borrow

and spend.

But this big jump is quite a change in strategy than what the Fed has had over the last

year.

It's kind of had this extremely slow and steady boil the frog gently kind of thing.

Like Jerome Powell took a very long time to start announcing that the Fed was going to

raise interest rates, which it started doing this year.

Even though inflation was really high last year.

You know, there are a lot of people that said this approach took too long.

Like the economist magazine, for instance, they ran a headline a few months ago that said

the Fed that failed.

That is brutal.

And there are a lot of reasons why the Fed kind of took its time to fight inflation, but

we really wanted to understand the psyche of the Fed and its chair Jerome Powell.

In particular, two episodes from recent history that shaped Powell's thinking.

This is the Indicator from Planet Money.

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