**["Fed's Mouthpiece" Digs Deep into Waller: Silent Management is No Accident, His Unique Understanding of Inflation]** BlockBeats News, August 24 — Nick Timiraos, the Wall Street Journal reporter known as the "Fed's Mouthpiece," recently published an article pointing out that Waller's silent reform of the Federal Reserve is no accident. He has consistently held strong criticism toward the Fed's core communication tools introduced in 2012—the "dot plot" and the summary of economic projections. Timiraos noted that many on Wall Street cheered Waller's resume from 15 years ago, viewing him as a natural inflation hawk. However, meeting minutes and quarterly forecast data released years later revealed that his understanding of inflation causes is highly unconventional. His logic relies less on traditional demand-side indicators like unemployment rates and is deeply rooted in supply-side factors and government policies. During the aftermath of the 2007–2009 financial crisis, while most of his Fed colleagues viewed the 9% high unemployment rate as economic slack that could effectively suppress prices, Waller saw permanent structural damage. At the time, he pointed out that capital was failing to flow into the most efficient production sectors, the labor market had lost its ability to adjust, and Washington's unpredictable policies were exacerbating the situation. If unemployment was structural rather than temporary, it could not constrain prices. Timiraos stated that, in hindsight, Waller's pessimistic predictions about economic growth potential were partially validated. As he warned, increasingly tight regulatory, fiscal, and trade policies became growth-unfriendly, harming the economy's productive capacity. A shrinking economy would hit capacity limits more quickly, making it more vulnerable to external inflation shocks. However, the inflation crisis he warned about was delayed by a full decade. Today, Waller, now holding decision-making power, faces a macroeconomic environment entirely different from back then. After five years of "overshooting" inflation, he must assess the economic trajectory amid a wave of technological disruption whose scale no one can accurately predict. Over the past year, he has suggested that AI-driven technological advancements might provide the economy with greater growth potential and that technology often reduces costs over time. Last month, when asked how he interprets the current economy, he described the same core dilemma as 15 years ago. Waller candidly admitted: "We are inferring total supply. We are making judgments about what productivity is." [Original Link]