As the leader of the Small Business Association of Michigan, I spend a lot of time listening to what’s happening in our local economies, from Ironwood to Monroe. In recent years, I’ve been struck by how often business owners can sense economic turns well before official statistics catch up. That gap between lived experience and government data isn’t new — but what troubles me is how the Federal Reserve seems to have doubled down on the wrong signals at precisely the wrong times.

Consider the inflation surge a few years ago. It didn’t take an advanced econometrics degree to see that costs were spiraling. Small business owners were feeling that daily. Yet the Fed clung to the idea that inflation was “transitory,” and waited far too long to react. When they finally acted, they had to slam on

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