Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh has ordered the institution's entire policy staff to march inflation out of the central bank's headquarters and on foot to the Capitol, a journey of roughly four kilometres that the Fed is now calling the Walk of Restraint. The first column set off at dawn on Monday, carrying a glass jar labelled with the current inflation rate and a thermometer tied to a wooden pole.
Warsh told reporters that the walk was a matter of method rather than theatre. «We were too focused on the rate itself,» he said. «Today we are focused on moving it, one step at a time, past every bank and coffee shop on the route, so that the public can see where it is going.» The procession has already required the closure of two lanes of Constitution Avenue, and the Metropolitan Police Department has assigned forty officers to walk alongside it in reflective vests.
Staff economists have been issued sensible shoes and a daily pedometer quota. Several analysts reported blisters by the second kilometre, and the Fed's human resources office has begun offering ice packs at designated rest stops, each marked with a small brass plaque. A parallel column of economists is now assigned to walk the route in reverse each evening, to check whether the figure has drifted back toward the bank overnight.
Local shopkeepers say the procession has changed the neighbourhood. A hardware store on Fourteenth Street has sold out of walking poles, and a pharmacy has stocked extra thermometers for tourists who want to follow along. Warsh has promised that the march will continue until inflation reaches the Capitol steps, and he has indicated that the Fed will return the following week to walk it back to the headquarters for a second round of review.