Brian Wesbury & Co. here says the first Fed rate hike is coming in six months (June) because "considerable time" has secretly meant six months to Janet Yellen all along. Dropping that phrase for the word "patient" signals that the six month timer has begun ticking.
OK, maybe so.
But if the employment numbers cool as I expect them to after the first of the year when all the part-timers hired recently are let go, the Fed will still be in the rhetorical catbird seat to delay a June rate hike indefinitely because of the language change, without looking like it has back-tracked on its plan.
Janet Yellen may have an "obsession with the labor market" but she is not stupid.
If Democrats and Republicans had been so obsessed, she wouldn't have to be. At least workers' lives matter to Janet Yellen, which is more than can be said for the usual practitioners of the dismal science.
