That's certainly not the way this was supposed to go. Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell had been planning a nice, quiet rate cut number two. He needed to make his point in as clear a way as possible; which is, the US economy needs a little insurance even though it really doesn't need any. Everything is fine, but just in case it's not.
The last thing anyone at the FOMC wanted was for the central bank to be publicly humiliated on the very day of the announcement. It's a pretty basic thing in one sense, in that all central banking relies on a simple principle. Interpretation is where it gets complex. What a money rate means, that's the debate. What a money rate does, there's never supposed to be any question.
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