TREE NEWS reports: Li Xunlei, chief economist at Zhongtai International, said on September 19 at the Tsinghua PBCSF Chief Economists Forum that Federal Reserve rate hikes may not effectively control inflation. He noted that since last year US capital expenditure has risen sharply, concentrated in AI and semiconductor sectors where firms are less price-sensitive and have high gross margins, making inflation hard to bring down.
Li Xunlei: Fed Rate Hikes May Be Less Effective as Inflation Stays Sticky
Li's argument reframes the inflation debate: if the current capex boom is concentrated in sectors that can absorb higher borrowing costs, the traditional transmission channel of rate hikes weakens. That matters for anyone positioned around Fed policy, because it implies tighter conditions may persist without delivering the intended disinflation. The open question is whether this capex concentration is a durable structural shift or a cyclical feature of the AI investment wave.
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