Re:US Jobs Pickup May Keep Fed on Track to Hike Rates Again
by darth_avocado on Sunday November 01, 2026 @03:49PM
(#50329720)
> Years of ZIRP have conditioned people into believing that rates at 5% are "high", when the historical reality is that 5% is approximately the mean rate over the past 70 years
I don’t like this framing because since 1990, 5% is on the higher end of the interest rates. [1] That is the entire lifetime for an entire generation of people, Millennials and everyone after. We can’t point to the “golden old days” and pretend that once upon a time interest rates were high so, it’s okay and people need to “remember” things were different. The entire economy has restructured since 1990.
Also, the Volkner move in itself was a deviation from the norm, not the norm itself. Some parts of 70s and 80s was the only time we saw unusually high spikes, but before that 5% again was on the higher end. Are we saying the boomers in the 60s were also spoiled by low interest rates for decades?
I don’t like this framing because since 1990, 5% is on the higher end of the interest rates. [1] That is the entire lifetime for an entire generation of people, Millennials and everyone after. We can’t point to the “golden old days” and pretend that once upon a time interest rates were high so, it’s okay and people need to “remember” things were different. The entire economy has restructured since 1990.
Also, the Volkner move in itself was a deviation from the norm, not the norm itself. Some parts of 70s and 80s was the only time we saw unusually high spikes, but before that 5% again was on the higher end. Are we saying the boomers in the 60s were also spoiled by low interest rates for decades?
[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/2015/fed-funds-rate-historical-c...