Up on the Farm

Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, said in a speech Monday that the Fed should be prepared to raise rates as the risks of weaker growth diminish. But Mr. Lacker, who is generally hawkish on inflation, also suggested a willingness to hold rates steady for now, by noting that inflation expectations haven’t gone “adrift.”

“We seem to have dodged this risk so far,” Mr. Lacker said. “Inflation expectations are higher than I would like, but are relatively stable.” —The Wall Street Journal

Yes, we know, the expression is “down on the farm.”

But this weekend we had the good fortune to spend Father’s Day on a horse farm in a quiet, wind-swept valley in Northern California, helping feed all manner of chicken, goats and assorted other livestock, while eating strawberries so sweet they tasted like M&M’s.

And there is nothing that is “down” on the farm in the last year or two.

Chicken feed has doubled. Hay has doubled. Grains are through the roof. It’s so bad the local cattle ranchers are feeding their cattle straw—which is otherwise used as bedding in horse stalls.

Whatever “inflation expectations” Mr. Lacker of the Fed is seeing in his cozy office there in Richmond, on the farm the last word out of anybody’s mouth would be “stable.”

Jeff Matthews I Am Not Making This Up

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