People are VERY disappointed in Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve. The Fed has called it wrong from the beginning, too fast, too slow. They even tightened in the beginning. Others are running circles around them and laughing all the way to the bank. Dollar & Rates are hurting...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2019
No, Donald, many people ARE disappointed in Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve for Failing to Follow the recommendation of Kansas City and Boston's Fed Bank presidents, who, having Voted against yesterday's Rate Cut, say "they would prefer to see a more pronounced deterioration in economic data before lowering rates."
I'm particularly disappointed, in that the Fed might be seen as having cowered before a president who understands neither macroeconomics nor the tradition of political noninterference.
That said, even a layman like me fathoms that whatever drag slightly higher interest rates may have caused the economy, it was insignificant compared to the braking effects of Trump's dumbass trade wars.
Business investment has fallen by 3 percent, factory and office spending has fallen by 15 percent, and the third-quarter GDP, reports the Times, sits at a meager 1.9 percent — meager, that is, in view of the administration's projections of 3 percent averages.
To be fair, the U.K.'s rather novel approach to international economics — some Brits just want to watch the world burn — has contributed to global sluggishness, and thus ours. But Trump's ignorance has contributed more, with its tentacles spreading far beyond the Europe Union.
"While the central bank was on a steady march to raise rates just a year ago," writes the Times Fed correspondent, Jeanna Smialek, "it has spent the past several months trying to insulate the American economy against [the threats of 'Trump’s hot-and-cold trade war, paired with a tenuous global outlook']."
Another four years of this arrogant, incompetent president and we'll be in a depression.