As we all know, the American economy is going great. Or at least that’s what the Democrats and the Biden administration keep telling us.
But a recent announcement from the Federal Reserve seems to be saying the exact opposite.
On Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell was participating in a panel discussion at the Wilson Center, sharing his thoughts on the economy and how things were shaping up for the rest of 2024.
When it comes to interest rates, currently at rather historic highs, he says you shouldn’t expect to see them drop any time soon. Neither does the government have inflation under control.
“Recent data have not clearly given us greater confidence” inflation is under control and “instead indicate that it’s likely to take longer than expected to achieve that confidence.”
Naturally, “if higher inflation does persist, we can maintain the current level of (interest rates) for as long as needed.”
Fed's Powell: Elevated inflation will likely delay rate cuts this year https://t.co/nu2U5oboDX
— KGW News (@KGWNews) April 17, 2024
If you remember, the Federal Reserve made comments to Congress back in March about how the economy was doing. At the time, they expected inflation to die down, allowing the Fed to begin to cut back the current high-interest rates, stopping many from buying homes or cars. In fact, they said they were “not far” from seeing the kind of data that would allow that to happen.
Understandably, they had said they would need a bit more data before they could officially make those changes, according to Reuters.
However, a mere month later, and now they are saying all that is going to have to wait, possibly for a long, long time.
Of course, none of this should be surprising to any of you. We all have to buy gas, groceries, pay the bills. And we can see with our own eyes that prices aren’t going down. Sure, inflation rates might not be as bad as they were in 2022. But inflation is most definitely still here.
And as Powell just clearly stated, it means high interest rates are too.
Needless to say, I doubt this is going to play out very well for the Biden campaign. You know, the man who said we currently have the “best economy in the world” just earlier this month.
It turns out people don’t like liars, and they don’t like people who are so far removed from reality that they can’t relate to them.
