Is Powell In The Tank For Harris Or What?

The knucklehead lawyer and private equity money-shuffler Donald Trump appointed as Fed Chair explained yesterday morning at the annual Wall Street gamblers soiree in Jackson Hole just how he plans to return the favor. Apparently, with a monetary stiletto right between the Donald’s shoulder blades in the form of a pre-election rate cut that is bound to help the Dems.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave the all clear for interest rate cuts to begin and sounded dovish notes about U.S. labor conditions in a speech from Jackson Hole, Wyoming,  on Friday that looked back over the monetary response to the pandemic.

“The time has come for policy to adjust,” Powell said. “The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.”

Powell noted weaker labor conditions, saying the “labor market has cooled considerably from its formerly overheated state,” though he qualified that it is still low by historical standards.

 “We do not seek or welcome further labor market cooling”…..

Do these people have no shame? They don’t have the slightest idea about the economy’s “direction of travel”. Likewise, they have been constantly confused by the noise and big revisions embedded in the “in-coming data” and have had an “evolving outlook” that is always the same a few quarters into the future when the so-called “dot plot” shows inflation at exactly 2.00% and the US economy brimming with full-employment. World without end, amen!

As for the the alleged centrality of the labor market—do these cats even know whether it is the chicken or egg that they are talking about?

According to Powell, the labor market was “overheated” a while back but has now “cooled considerably”. Yet we don’t see that in the data at all.