The Fed's Concerns

Fed chair Bernanke spoke to the Joint Economic Committee
of Congress today. His concerns:

1. The labor market is tight. Capacity Utilization for
primary processing of basic feedstocks and materials is
very high. Growth of capacity utilization in the US is
low across the board. This combo of factors pushes the
Fed to sit tight and say some prayers that cash rich
corporate America starts spending more on development.
(Europe has a similar problem with labor. The available
workforce does not have the skills needed by growing
businesses. The tech sector is on the verge of blowing
orders because they are coming up short in skilled labor.)

2. Inflation excluding food and fuels is high relative to
target and is proving stickier than the Fed thought it would
be. On top, fuel prices are rising again. The inflation
situation pushes the Fed to sit tight as well.

3. The subprime mortgage market fiasco has surprised them. Oh,
the Fed knew full well that the tightening of monetary policy
would prompt a rise in delinquencies and foreclosures, but
they likely did not bargain for the collapse of credit
underwriting standards and outright fraud that is putting so
much additional pressure on the market. The Fed and the FDIC
among other regulators now have no choice but to embrace
regulatory reform. This will add to the problems in junk credit
markets for the forseeable future, because financial organizations
tend to freeze asset generation until the new regs. are spelled
out and understood. The junk asset-backed credit markets will
suffer. The Fed would like to sit tight on this, too, but they
will have to monitor carefully for spillover effects to the general
economy.

This is the first tough stretch for the Bernanke Fed. We'll see how
they handle it.