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Fed chairman Jerome Powell remarked today that the US central bank is “heavily engaged” in controlling inflation, but hope remains that it can be done without the “very high social costs” involved in previous inflation struggles. . Referring to what happened in the early 1980s with the fight against inflation waged by then x Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, when Fed policy triggered a recession and the unemployment rate exceeded 10%, Powell explained today how Volcker it was trying to root out years of rising inflation expectations. “My colleagues and I are deeply committed to lowering inflation … We think we can avoid the kind of very high social costs that Paul Volcker and the Fed have had to put into play.”