Should have cut rates a small amount now. Fast forward to September and Jerome will have another excuse.

The 10-year Treasury notes dropped below 4% - https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/01/us-treasurys-investors-weigh-interest-rate-outlook.html

which suggests a shift going on. Will have to see what happens with the Unemployment Rate that issues tomorrow.

Last 6 months average: 3.4%, Last 3 months average: 2.3%. (All of these are annualized numbers)
FRED: CORE PCE (the Fed's favorite inflation gauge for projecting FUTURE inflation from): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCEPILFE

All the inflation graphs with sources: https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=3279441

I don't think they should abandon their 2% target. Inflation has hurt me badly. It has hurt many DUers badly too, or so it seems not too long ago:

Back in 2021 and 2022 when inflation was growing, reaching 9% on a year-over-year basis and double digits on a 3 month average, just about everyone who posted about inflation here was blaming the Fed for being a bunch of dumb fucks for waiting too long to begin doing something about inflation, and being ding dongs for thinking it was transitory (or for deliberately trying to ruin President Biden's economic record by letting inflation roar). And how awful inflation is, e.g. food prices are 50% higher every time I go to the grocery store etc.

Now just about everyone has been blaming the Fed for months for not abandoning their 2% goal and for not easing sooner.

Also it isn't one person that decides. It's decided by a vote of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

I don't think Powell nor the FOMC are the frightened Trump-licking cowards that many on DU seem to think. After Yellen raised interest rates 0.75 percentage points during Felonious Maximus's first year in 2017, the frightened timid Powell / FOMC raised them another 1.0 percentage point.

I had a done posts the past couple years tracking the rates and showing folks that yes, the rates were increased during the first year or so of his term (I think there were 8 increases). One from a couple years ago I had annotated the period just before Yellen started the increases (the "Great Recession" ) -



And specifically when we had finally come out of that recession, the increases before the huge "COVID Recession" -



Unfortunately people got so accustomed to "0%" (technically like 0.25%) that they thought that was how it always was.

I wanted to get an updated chart, so slapping it here for now.



(from here - https://www.macrotrends.net/2015/fed-funds-rate-historical-chart although I know that the same is here - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS)