Yesterday, Fed Chair Jay Powell went up to Capitol Hill for a chat on the Fed’s economic outlook and talked about how negative rates are dumb, inflation doesn’t keep him up at night, and pretty much ignored any chance to take a shot at his bully: the actual president. Overall, it was an exceedingly boring and news-free appearance even by monetary policy standards, probably because everyone in the room was wishing they were in a room nearby where all the hot messy impeachment drama was going down.
And today, Powell is set to go back up to congress for another long chat. It seems like overkill to us and based on the Fed Chair’s prepared remarks, he feels exactly the same way. The Fed’s webpage for today is simply a copy of yesterday’s statement with the date unchanged and this message:
Chair Powell submitted identical remarks to the House Committee on the Budget, U.S. Congress, on November 14, 2019.
So, go suck a lemon, everyone who keeps criticizing Jay Powell for not having a clear message! The Powell doctrine is here and it reads “Same Shit, Different Day.”