Negative Real Fed Rate: Another example of a subsidy fueling inflation

Martin Feldstein echoes my Fed rate cut sentiment:

It's time for the Federal Reserve to stop reducing the federal funds rate, because the likely benefit is small compared to the potential damage.

Lower interest rates could raise the already high prices of energy and food, which are already triggering riots in developing countries. In order to offset the inflationary impact of higher imported commodity prices, central banks in those countries may raise interest rates. Such contractionary policies would reduce real incomes and exacerbate political instability.

... high unemployment and low capacity utilization would not prevent lower interest rates from driving up commodity prices. Many factors have contributed to the recent rise in the prices of oil and food, especially the increased demand from China, India and other rapidly growing countries. Lower interest rates also add to the upward pressure on these commodity prices – by making it less costly for commodity investors and commodity speculators to hold larger inventories of oil and food grains.

Lower interest rates induce investors to add commodities to their portfolios. When rates are low, portfolio investors will bid up the prices of oil and other commodities to levels at which the expected future returns are in line with the lower rates.

An interest rate-induced rise in the price of oil also contributes indirectly to higher prices of food grains. It does so by making it profitable for farmers to devote more farm land to growing corn for ethanol. The resulting reduction in acreage devoted to producing food crops causes the supply of those commodities to decline and their prices to rise.

The rise in the U.S. inflation rate, and the adverse effects in emerging market countries, might be defensible if lower interest rates could significantly stimulate demand and reduce the risk of a deep recession. But under current conditions, reducing the federal funds interest rate from the current 2.25% by 50 or 75 basis points is not likely to do much to stimulate demand.

Economic recovery will require resolving the difficult problems of the credit markets, dealing with the millions of homeowners who may now be tempted to default on mortgages that exceed the value of their homes, and reducing the risk that the ongoing decline in house prices will push millions of additional homeowners into a vulnerable, negative equity condition. A lower fed funds rate will not solve any of those problems.

My similar view, posted the first week of March. John Makin argued the opposite view yesterday, saying easy money would support the housing market, but I would challenge him that one cannot control where the easy money will reflate.