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Opinion
John Authers

Now, If Only Powell Can Get Gas Prices to Start Falling

The Fed had to kick the idea of “transitory” price hikes to the curb. The public isn’t ready for this level of inflation, but data suggest most still don’t think it’s out of control. 

Is better news coming for Biden?

Is better news coming for Biden?

Photographer: Jenny Sathngam/Bloomberg
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It appears now to be official. Jerome Powell told Congress in his first testimony since being re-nominated to run the Federal Reserve that it was time to “retire” the word “transitory.” This wasn’t a bolt from the blue. Powell had been growing more hawkish in his public pronouncements, and other senior Fed officials have tried to get away from it; Raphael Bostic, who heads the Atlanta Fed, even said that he had banned the word and treated it like swearing.