What Is Jay Powell Saying About Interest Rates Now?
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So who does it better? Who does a better job? Is it Jay Powell at the Fed or is it the Puxitone Phil and the Groundhog?
I couldn’t help thinking about the damn Groundhog Groundhog’s Day and predictions. The movie Groundhog Day, one of my favorites. Again, I love making fun of, yeah, needle nose Ned Ryerson, the insurance salesman, which I’ve done often here on the program. Then there’s the infamous Groundhog that were the Staten Island Groundhog that was dropped.
by Bill de Blasio, the mayor at the time and the the groundhog died. Anyway, yep, well, Jay Powell came out again yesterday gave us his prediction. So, again, Powell dials back expectation on rate cuts, Nick Timmeros, Wall Street Journal, he is the the Fed writer at the Wall Street Journal here and I’ll quote him.
firm inflation during the first quarter has called into question whether the Federal Reserve will be able to lower interest rates this year without signs of unexpected economic slowdown. According to Jerome Powell on Tuesday, a clear shift in the Fed’s outlook following a third consecutive month of stronger than anticipated inflation readings. Let me be perfectly clear with everybody here. Nick writes an extensive piece.
filled up a lot of space in the Wall Street Journal. Let me, if Federal Reserve, Jay Powell and these cats to Fed, these economists, they can be more fickle than a teenage girl. Let’s just be honest here. Remember inflation is transitory. Let’s just go back and take a look. I would love to do a head to head comparison between.
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Puxitani -Phil and the Groundhog’s predictions on the length of winter and the Fed’s predictions when it comes to inflation. I do think, because it draws so much attention yesterday on the business networks, they actually need the Fed. The Fed is a character. The entire thing, it’s for them. It gives them things to talk about. They were a lot more creative, quite frankly, back in the 1990s when Alan Greenspan
and see NBC cracking jokes and having the briefcase indicator where they are looking at how old how thick is Alan Greenspan’s briefcase? Hardy Har Har Har. Well, that means they’re going to do this with rates. All right, listen. Again, I asked again, million different programs in regards to what the Fed had to say. If your portfolio and your finances and what you’re doing hinge upon what the Federal Reserve is going to do again, you might as well again,
I don’t know, go to Puxatawney Phil and a groundhog to tell you what to do with your portfolio. I never let the Federal Reserve be a determining factor in how we go about building people’s portfolios because they’re never right. The last time I can recall the Federal Reserve being right about a damn thing was probably Paul Volcker calling out the jerks in Congress for spending too much money. Federal Reserve can’t do a damn thing about.
Government spending?
going to keep borrowing and printing and printing and spending. What the hell is the Federal Reserve going to do? They don’t even comment on it for crying out loud. Inflation inflation. I love that word. That’s sticky. It’s sticky. It’s sticking around. It’s always been around. It’s always been around. Never going anywhere. A 2 % target has always been a lie. I got a kick out of this too.
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The same thing talking about inflation. Here we have a senior lecturer at MIT. At MIT, this is Robert Posen. He was former chairman of MFS Investment Management. And you got another accounting and finance professor at MIT. S .P. Cathari, writing a piece, What Economists Miss.
about inflation. You know, I should just start printing up the transcripts of this show and sending them into the journal because they’re more extensive than this. Here’s how this one starts. Many economists and political commentators wonder why U .S. consumers continue to feel they are suffering from inflation, although the annual rate of inflation dropped sharply during 2023 and is still well below its peak in the summertime of 2022.
The answer is that consumers have a broader time horizon. They are looking at the rate of price increases over the past three years. Thanks guys. I appreciate the information. We all know this already. Again, quite frankly, it’d be better if in your column, you got into why inflation is continuing to go up and why it’s not going to go down.
I’m glad, you know, what economists miss about inflation is that economists really don’t know much. They’ve been wrong time and time again. Now, again, I’m poking fun because this is a very, very short article. I would have expected a little bit more. These, again, MIT professors. But it is what it is. I found it more interesting, quite frankly, James Freeman, who is a clever cat, a real nice guy.
Wall Street Journal is talking about prom season on Long Island. Prom season on Long Island and inflation during prom season. Again, my inflation, it’s come down this year a little bit. My son is a senior in high school, my daughter’s college. I remember, you know, I think my daughter how many dresses she was in to less anyway, neither here nor there. It’s up there now.
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What, 300 bucks to rent a tux? Holy sh – Nike’s are crying out loud going through the costs that are involved. The bus prom tickets, prom tickets average around 150 out for the prom.
There’s no open bar either at a prom for crying out loud. Anyway, neither here nor there. Again, keep tuning in and listening to the Wizards of Smart there, the Jay Powells and the Economists and all these cast of characters that they’re gonna parade on CNBC, the soothsayers. You know, like I said, I’d go with Pux Tony Phil. I think Pux Tony’s got a better record. Watchdogonwallstreet .com.