Fed Holds Rates – What Tools Are Left?

The Federal Open Market Committee unsurprisingly voted to maintain rates at 5.25% to 5.5%. The numerous cuts others were anticipating are completely off the table, as the central bank said there might be one reduction for the year compared with their optimistic forecast made in March of three rate reductions in 2024.

“In recent months, there has been modest further progress toward the Committee’s 2 percent inflation objective,” the voting members of the Fed said in their statement. They changed their forecast on inflation from “a lack of” to “modest” progress toward the 2% inflation objective.

Four voting members do not believe the central bank should raise rates at all this year. The central bank continues to exclude food and energy, two of the primary drivers of inflation when creating their summaries and dot plots. They certainly would never include taxation in those figures. The Fed claims there will be multiple rate cuts come next year, but they would never cut rates in the face of war which is completely inflationary and produces nothing.

Raising interest rates can have no impact on demand, as the government will simply borrow more, and the central banks simply have no say. Fed Chair Powell has repeatedly said that government spending is completely unsustainable and the Biden Administration is borrowing against future generations.

I explained in an earlier post why Keynesian Economics is collapsing. That theory was created when the US had a balanced budget and the government was actually expected to repay what they borrow. They still mistakenly believe that the business cycle can be manipulated. There is not much that the Federal Reserve can do at this point in time besides hope and pray for a miracle before that $10 trillion in debt is due to mature this year.