No April Fools for Fisher: Inflationary Pressure Rising?

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Dallas Fed president and CEO Richard Fisher told the Dallas Real Estate Council this morning the usual rah rah Texas stuff:  Texans are uniquely qualified to turn the economy around and get a grip on the nation’s $14.2 trillion debt. Lower unemployment here. We built and can continue the greatest job-creating machine in the world, we are risk-takers, but we need to be more intellectual. Dallas, he said, needs more universities and intellectual think tanks, what he called “warehouses for the capitalist’s tools—the human mind.” And we cannot stay ahead of the game unless we create great universities, he said. He’s so right — one reason why Houston is forging ahead of Dallas is the abundance of great Houston universities, like Rice.

But I wanted the real estate juice, and I got it: existing inventory is being absorbed, thanks to the dearth of construction. And capital is no longer an issue, banks are lending — really? The central bank, he says, has done it’s job.

But here’s the sweet spot of what he said: inflation. Fisher is concerned about rising inflation world-wide that may start to push up wages in Europe and the U.S. He’s hearing talk of  pay increases of 3 percent or so in certain high value-added areas, like Washington, D.C., and there’s an inflationary dynamic building world-wide.

“We just have to be very careful not to accommodate inflation in the United States,” Fisher said.

Could very well be why some major money people are buying up real estate.

Candy Evans

Candy Evans