The Fed keeps ignoring the screams of the inflation hawks

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a Rube Goldberg machine of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Inflation [still looks pretty transitory](. - Delta’s [not changing shopping habits]( yet. - America’s [factories have a big labor problem](. - Peloton [has a lot of problems](. Soaring Inflation Hawks Face a Hard Fall Being an inflation hawk this year is like being a fan of a losing football team that gets off to a great start against a schedule of creampuffs. It won’t last, but you can easily be fooled into thinking it will. Team Inflation (the Fightin’ Wheelbarrows) has had a bad couple of decades. They keep getting their dander up that everything from government spending to QE to sunspots will finally revive runaway prices, only to be disappointed. This year has been different: Runaway prices are here. Just today the Federal Reserve’s favorite measure of consumer price inflation clocked in at the [hottest]( since Alan Greenspan was in short pants (OK, suit pants, but play along).  But the Fed remains unconcerned, despite the hawks making frequent, loud hawk noises about monetary policy being too loose. Chairman Jay Powell today stuck to his mantra that these higher prices are a passing fad, even as he tossed the hawks a treat by hinting he’d start dialing back on QE. And Powell is right, notes Robert Burgess: [Prices are being inflated by global supply-chain hangups]( that have nothing to do with Fed interest rates or whatever. Clamping down on the economy now would only hurt the economy without getting to the root cause of higher prices. The economy isn’t exactly in its finest fettle anyway. Along with that inflation report came a disappointing read on consumer spending, and the University of Michigan’s consumer [sentiment]( gauge is stuck in a trough. On the bright side, [consumers have been shopping as if the pandemic is mostly over](, writes Andrea Felsted. But that mainly means they’re buying normal, pre-2020 stuff such as makeup and suit pants. Thanks to the delta variant, they’re not exactly splurging. With “hot vax” summer turning into “not vax” summer and maybe “not leave the house” fall, inflation hawks face being disappointed again. This Failure Has a Thousand Fathers President Joe Biden has so far taken the vast bulk of the blame for the messy end of a messy 20-year war. But other presidents played big roles in this drama. And [Congress can’t avoid its own responsibility](, Jonathan Bernstein writes. It has all kinds of war powers, right there in the [Constitution](, followed up roughly a couple of centuries later by a [resolution]( that overrode a presidential veto. It authorized the war in Afghanistan and then (with some exceptions) looked the other way, except for when the war needed more money, like the parents of a teenager. This would be a great time to grab back some of its authority, regardless of the political repercussions. Further Afghanistan Reading: The [U.S. can’t trust the Taliban]( to fight the Islamic State. — Bobby Ghosh America’s Factory Labor Shortage, in One Chart In Brooke Sutherland’s latest “Industrial Strength” [newsletter](, she points out there are [more than 800,000 job openings at U.S. factories](. Sounds like a lot, yes. But nothing can prepare you for how much worse the problem looks when you see it the context of recent history: Brooke has some ideas for how to address this, including Pell Grants, hiring ex-convicts and letting people know factory work isn’t all like this any more: Telltale Charts [Peloton’s pandemic salad days are over now](, writes Tara Lachapelle, as people slowly rediscover, like, gyms and stuff. It’s gonna have to spin harder. Brazil’s Supreme Court has a chance to protect indigenous rights and by extension the environment, [both of which are under assault by Jair Bolsonaro](, writes Clara Ferreira Marques. Further Reading Pennsylvania taxpayers are [subsidizing a Bitcoin miner burning waste coal]( because this is somehow considered green. — Liam Denning [Behavioral economics isn’t dead](; it just needs to work on its messaging. — Allison Schrager [India’s version of the Green New Deal could be the real]( deal, mainly because Narendra Modi lacks other buttons to push. — Mihir Sharma Weirdest bubble ever: Investors are buying Chinese [tech stocks that give away money]( to satisfy China’s government. — Matthew Brooker [Want to get paid in Bitcoin](? Hope you like tax hassles! — Alexis Leondis ICYMI The [origins of the pandemic]( are still unclear. Biden is considering [shortening booster-shot timing](. The [superyachts are fine](, everybody. Kickers A landmark [study on honesty used fake data](. (h/t Alexandra Ivanoff) Scientists used [Waygu cow stem cells to 3-D print]( steaks. (h/t Mike Smedley) Scientists are searching for [lost Nazi nuclear cubes](. How to [survive a bear attack](. (h/t Scott Kominers for the last two kickers)  Notes:  Please send printed steaks and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Like Bloomberg Opinion Today? [Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more](. You’ll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Opinion Today newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022