Balancing Inflation and Growth Part 5 of 13

Some argue it is the slowing economy. Even if you foresee the most likely U.S. scenario as a period of flat growth for a few quarters, followed later in the year by a return to potential growth of about 3 percent, one cannot help but worry about whether the so-called tail risk commodity trading companies the odds of the worst-case scenario on the growth distribution curve unfoldingis getting fatter as the inventory of unsold homes continues to swell, consumers sense of wealth and businesses confidence erodes, and the solicitous bankers that used to court them become more coy.

Yet, the worst-case scenario remains very much a tail risk. As Chairman Bernanke noted in testimony before Congress last week, the nonfinancial sector has held up reasonably well and continues to expand. Employment growth is weakening and consumer confidence is sagging, but inventories and other indicators remain constructive. You can see evidence of this in the fourth quarters corporate performance. Thomson Financial reported last week that own 22 percent for the 462 S&P 500 companies that have so far released their numbers for the quarter. But strip out the financial institutions, and earnings were up 12 percent, and 62 percent of those 462 companies reported earnings that topped analysts expectations. In all, that is not bad when you consider the beating the financials have taken and how stocks of housing and housing-related companies have been pummeled.

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Balancing Inflation and Growth Part 12 of 13

As a result, trade in services is one of the most rapidly growing components of global trade. Thus, even the available supply of architects or petroleum engineers or software designers or medical technicians or lawyers or commodity trading broker must increasingly be considered in the context of global rather than domestic demand.

The point is that, at present, we simply do not have the ability to adequately account for the impact globalization has on the gearing commodity trading account of our domestic economy. Absent that capacity, we cannot, in my opinion, confidently assume that slower U.S. economic growth will quell U.S. inflation and, more important, keep inflationary expectations anchored. Containing inflation is the purpose of the ship I crew for, and if a temporary economic slowdown is what we must endure while we achieve that purpose, then it is, in my opinion, a burden we must bear, however politically inconvenient.

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