Patterico's Pontifications

7/31/2019

Fed cuts Interest Rate; Trump responds

Filed under: Economics — DRJ @ 3:34 pm



[Headlines from DRJ]

Fed cuts key rate for first time in more than a decade:

The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for the first time in a decade to try to counter the impact of President Donald Trump’s trade wars, stubbornly low inflation and global weakness.

It left open the possibility of future rate cuts, but perhaps not as many as Wall Street had been hoping for. During a news conference, Chairman Jerome Powell struggled to find just the right words to articulate the Fed’s strategy and what might prompt future rate cuts at a time when the risk of a recession in the United States seems relatively low.

***

The central bank reduced its benchmark rate — which affects many loans for households and businesses — by a quarter-point to a range of 2% to 2.25%. It’s the first rate cut since December 2008 during the depths of the Great Recession, when the Fed slashed its rate to a record low near zero and kept it there until 2015. The economy is far healthier now despite risks to what’s become the longest expansion on record.

Trump responded that Fed Chief Powell ‘let us down’ by not clearly signaling more rate cuts.

— DRJ

3 Responses to “Fed cuts Interest Rate; Trump responds”

  1. An Orange-utan now thinks he knows economics, then makes mouth noises, ooohh aaaahh aaaha, and flings his own poop…at himself, and his followers called him genius.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (6e7a1c)

  2. As a reminder of how low rates are
    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=NUh

    Click on the “max” tab to show the mortgage rate going back into the 70s (meaning for all or most of our adult lives, for most people here).

    Kishnevi (1b8c69)

  3. Click on the “max” tab to show the mortgage rate going back into the 70s (meaning for all or most of our adult lives, for most people here).

    They are historically low, but not quite as low as they look, thanks to the suppressed zero…

    Dave (1bb933)


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