The Federal Reserve decided to cut rates by 50 basis points despite what Chairman Powell considers “no risk of a recession or downturn,” a “solid economy,” and a “strong job market.”
After ignoring the impact of monetary aggregates and the warning signs of inflation, the Federal Reserve has breached its price stability mandate for three consecutive years, preferring to prioritize liquidity injections, i.e., printing money, to the recovery of the currency’s purchasing power.
The “higher for longer” policy only lasted eighteen months. Furthermore, the latest reading of the Chicago Fed National Financial Conditions Index indicates extremely loose conditions. In fact, the Fed has never cut rates by so much when financial conditions have been this loose.
If financial conditions are extremely loose and the economy and the labor market are strong, according to the FOMC minutes, there is no sign of recession and inflation remains above target, especially the core CPI, why should they cut rates so fast? What happened?
The Fed decided to bail out the government in the middle of an election process of all moments. The Fed’s questioned independence is even more doubtful today. Cutting rates to help an overly indebted government has become part of the electoral campaign.
The Fed did not panic in September after the negative revision that lost 818,000 jobs from the previous reading. The Fed had already panicked in June when it delayed its tightening cycle, which coincided with a burst in sovereign bond yields. Despite persistent inflation and an overheated economy, the Committee decided to “slow the pace of decline of its securities holdings by reducing the monthly redemption cap on Treasury securities from $60 billion to $25 billion.” Additionally, the Fed announced it would “reinvest any principal payments in excess of this cap into Treasury securities.” The Fed panicked because the two-year Treasury yield soared to 5.03% between January and May 2024, despite an alleged robust economy and very encouraging official headline figures.