Here are three things the Fed’s done wrong, and what’s still not

After years of being a beacon for financial markets, the Federal Reserve suddenly finds itself second-guessed as it tries to navigate the economy through a wicked bout of inflation and away from ever-darkening recession clouds.

Complaints around the Fed have a familiar tone, with economists, market strategists and business leaders weighing in on what they feel is a series of policy mistakes.

Essentially, the complaints center on three themes for actions past, present and future: That the Fed didn’t act quickly enough to tame inflation, that it isn’t acting aggressively enough now even with a series of rate increases, and that it should have been better at seeing the current crisis coming.

“They should have known inflation was broadening and becoming more entrenched,” said Quincy Krosby, chief equity strategist at LPL Financial. “Why haven’t you seen this coming? This shouldn’t have been a shock. That, I think is a concern. I don’t know if it’s as stark a concern as ‘the emperor has no clothes.’ But it’s the man in the street vs. the PhDs.”

Consumers in fact had been expressing worries over price increases well before the Fed started raising rates. The Fed, however, stuck to its “transitory” script on inflation for months before finally enacting a meager quarter-point rate hike in March.

Then things accelerated suddenly earlier this week, when word leaked out that policymakers were getting more serious.

After officials for weeks had insisted that hiking 75 basis points was not on the table, a Wall Street Journal report Monday afternoon, with little sourcing, said that it was likely more aggressive action was coming than the planned 50-basis-point move. The report was followed with similar accounts from CNBC and other outlets. (A basis point is one-one hundredth of 1 percentage point.)

Ostensibly, the move came about following a consumer sentiment survey Friday showing that expectations were ramping up for longer-run inflation. That followed a report that the consumer price index in May gained 8.6% over the past year, higher than Wall Street expectations.

Addressing the notion that the Fed should have been more prescient about inflation, Krosby said it’s hard to believe the data points could have caught the central bankers so off guard.

“You come to something that just doesn’t add up, that they didn’t see this before the blackout,” she said, referring to the period before Federal Open Market Committee meetings when members are prohibited from addressing the public.

“You could applaud them for moving quickly, not waiting six weeks [until the next meeting]. But then you go back to, if it was that dire that you couldn’t wait six weeks, how is it that you…