Dear Fed Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell:
Just shut the hell up about your plans down the road. Your predictions are rarely correct, and you wreak havoc on people’s savings and retirements. Besides, you are seldom accurate, but everyone still believes you know what you are doing. And I know you either have no clue or do not care. If you had, you would have been yelling from the rooftops NOT TO PRINT MONEY like they did. Currency debasement has been around since the Roman Empire.
Once again, the Federal Reserve plays catch-up in the inflation relay race, cutting its benchmark lending rate by 25 basis points after its latest two-day meeting. Shocking, right? Well, not really. But what’s next might raise an eyebrow.
Here’s the kicker: The Fed’s crystal ball—aka its quarterly economic projections—has downgraded its optimism. We’re looking at two instead of four rate cuts in 2025. Inflation? It’s expected to hit 2.5% by 2025 instead of their previous “rosy” 2%.
And unemployment? Unchanged.
Translation: The Fed pumps less juice into the economy because inflation flexes harder than anticipated.
But let’s not forget the authentic Fed tradition —- making announcements that constantly rattle the markets while turning out to be—how shall we say it—less than reliable. Like clockwork, the Fed projects, and Mr. Market reacts, only for those projections to get revised, re-revised, and ultimately discarded like last year’s PowerPoint slides.
In today’s post-meeting spin session, Fed Chair Jerome Powell admitted the rate cut was a “closer call” than expected, thanks to stubbornly high inflation. Sure, they’re still planning to cut rates next year—probably. But Powell hedged like a pro, mumbling about neutral rates and the “path” we’re on. Spoiler alert: It’s a rocky one.
The markets, predictably, threw a tantrum. The S&P 500 dropped 3%, the Nasdaq nearly 4%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 got hammered by 5%. The Dow, clocking its 10th consecutive losing day, tumbled 2.7%. Even bonds weren’t spared, with the 10-year Treasury yield spiking past 4.5%.
Confident? Maybe—if confidence means endlessly revising projections while markets writhe in response. What is the Fed’s real message today? Inflation isn’t finished with us, and their forecasts are about as sturdy as a sandcastle at high tide.