Goodnight Lori.

In a multi-way race Lori came in third, and thus is no longer in the game.  Her time in Chicago is over.  Good riddance; its not that there is and always will be crime in a large city (there will) it is that it spread everywhere and therefore there's no "gang-bangers corner" so to speak anymore.  This destroys the revenue base on which any city must operate as those "nice" places where lots of money gets spent and the patrons come both disappear.  After all nobody wants to get shot while having a few drinks or a swanky steak dinner.

Then there's Kashkari, who I infamously dubbed cash-and-carry during the 08 mess.  Now he suddenly finds religion on rates and liquidity; gee, what was it about the previous time around that made it different?  Oh, nothing really, except that it wasn't in his face that time, and now it is.  Being one of the more-noted pumpers of the day, for him to state that while The Fed would like to avoid recession that's not the gating factor -- inflation is ought to make you sit up straight in your chair.  If it doesn't you're obviously in a state where wake-n-bake is legal and you ought to contemplate whether that's a good choice.

The problem, as I've noted over the last couple of years is that The Fed is still not facing reality.  No, coming "back to" a 2% inflation rate will not do the job; you have to remove the previous inflation, which in many things has doubled.  Not 6 or 8%, 100% over the last year or two, and that has to come back out because without it you can't possibly restore balance and the capacity of Americans to earn a decent wage and have a decent life.  Without that the economic destruction will not cease, credit will not contract on the consumer side and, in particular with Medicare and Medicaid if we don't reverse that part of it within the next two years the Federal Government will face only two options: Let the programs go broke and you get nothing, or amend the law to permit funding from general revenues and spending in which case there's an instantaneous and permanently-escalating hundreds of billions of dollars federal deficit impact that will quickly ruin the government's ability to fund itself.

In short the cash furnace games, which include the medical system writ large, have to stop -- and stop now.

I have little hope for it actually happening, but that's what must happen.  Its not an option, because to not do so winds up with us losing our way of life -- probably permanently.  If you think a Venezuela or similar can't happen here, you're wrong.  It not only can it will if we don't cut it out -- stock and house prices be damned.