Economist Steve Hanke has forged a 50-year career as a global “Money Doctor” advising heads of state and finance ministers from Indonesia to Kazakhstan. He's currently working with two presidential candidates in South America to quash inflation: In Venezuela, Roberto Enriquez, the Christian Democratic Party (COPEI) nominee for the 2024 election, has engaged Hanke as chief economic advisor with the charge of designing a currency board. In Argentina, aids to libertarian party candidate Javier Milei, who will run to lead the nation in October, are consulting Hanke on a blueprint to tackle to a price explosion that hit 103% in March. But there's one nation he can't seem to help: the United States.
Today, Hanke charges that the U.S. Federal Reserve is refusing to fill the prescriptions that helped bring a combination of low inflation and robust health to sundry ailing economies. In Hanke’s view, the Fed—after adopting reckless policies bound to send prices surging then failing to see the coming wave—is now using excessive, brute force, for far too long, to slay a dragon that’s already slayed. “Inflation’s in the rearview mirror and the Fed doesn’t even know it,” he says. “The monetary squeeze it’s now imposing is aimed at a problem that’s over, and the effect from here will be to hammer consumer demand and economic growth.”
