lol, they know that it's futile, but it's great "political cover". After all, once you pump up one sector of the economy and it collapses, you have to find a substitute asset structure...i.e. 2000-tech stocks collapse, inflate housing prices. 2008-housing prices & stock prices collapse. reflate everything...
As others have noted, the shift towards boosting asset prices to mask the damage in the real economy started, in earnest, around 95. They got some good bang for the buck the first go round..plus demographics really favored retail participation...the second go felt forced, but this third go round has been downright absurd. Yesterday just added more fuel to the fire for the critics of this approach to managing asset values.
Debt doesn't matter until it does. It only brings forward future consumption into the "now". Eventually, however, the cost to service the debt prevents both consumption and taking on more debt. That's where we're at, and why we have problems. The only alternative is either wiping the slate clean (fat chance on that) or inflating away the debt. The Fed is doing the only thing it can. Until it can't. It created the mess.
The scariest thing here is that one day this bubble will burst and a lot of people will lose their money ...
By the way, any thoughts what's going on on the stock market? Why did DOW dropped almost 300 points today? I thought that we will see the completely opposite reaction onto yesterday's FED's action.
Just more gaming of the bureaucrats to scare them into more accommodation. NIRP or another round of QE.
Regardless of input costs over time you cannot underestimate the skill of the "man" to maintain and increase prices. All my bills that I pay each month are substantially higher than they were 5-10 years ago. Natural gas may be half what it was by my bill is higher than it was , for one example. Sugar is a 4lb. bag and i am about to write my congressman regarding that because surely it is a fed driven unintended consequence. I am certain the 1% still can get 5lb. bags.