Weekly Wrap: Inflation, resigning from Goldman Sachs

Kai Ryssdal Mar 16, 2012

The week on Wall Street and beyond with Marketplace’s Heidi Moore and Sudeep Reddy of the Wall Street Journal.

On inflation, and whether we should be worried:

Heidi Moore: Yeah, I think we should be worried. We’re seeing more and more indicators of inflation, plus, the most important ones — our own eyes. We’re paying a lot more for gas, for food, and at some point, it has to hit policy. I understand the Fed right now is privileging things like the lower interest rates to help banks, to help the economy, but we’re seeing inflation rising — they have to react.

Sudeep Reddy: They’re going to have to be very careful in doing something like that, and one reason they’re so cautious — we’ve seen this week when the Fed used the word “moderate” instead of “modest” to describe the recovery, we thought that was a good thing and everyone should be excited — but one reason they’re being so cautious about this recovery is oil prices already being high and getting higher, even if it’s based off a strong recovery, is likely to put the brakes on the recovery. We’re not going to see it taking off the way we really need to see it. So they’re actually just going to wait as long as they can before they do something about it.

For more analysis, listen to the audio above.

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.