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Fed Holds Rates Steady as Trump Appointees Vote for Cuts


By Nicole Weatherholtz    |   Wednesday, 30 July 2025 04:19 PM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/federal-reserve-donald-trump-jerome-powell/2025/07/30/id/1220720/

Resisting tremendous pressure from the Trump administration, the Federal Reserve held its key interest rate steady on Wednesday as two of President Donald Trump’s appointees dissented from the decision and voted for cuts.

Wednesday’s meeting reportedly marks the first time in more than 30 years that two members of the Fed’s seven-member Board of Governors voted against a rate decision at the central bank.

Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman and board member Christopher Waller “preferred to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by one quarter of a percentage point at this meeting,” according to the Fed’s policy statement.

In announcing its decision, the Fed said that while economic growth had moderated in the first six months of 2025, inflation remained “somewhat elevated.”

Fed Chair Jerome Powell voted to keep rates unchanged, as did three other board members and the five Fed regional bank presidents who currently sit on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). Board member Adriana Kugler was absent from the meeting and did not vote.

Trump has been increasingly incensed by Powell’s refusal to lower rates in recent weeks. At one point, the president was threatening to oust the Fed chairman before his term expires, though the legality of such a plan was unclear. Last week, however, Trump appeared resigned to waiting until next May, when Powell’s four-year term is up, to appoint a new chair.

“I think he’s done a bad job, but he’s going to be out pretty soon anyway,” the president said at an event that aired live on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 free online streaming platform. “In eight months, he’ll be out. But I call him ‘Too Late.’ He’s too late all the time. He should have lowered interest rates many times. Europe lowered their rate 10 times. We lowered ours none, and it’s causing a problem for people that want to buy a home.”

With the Fed’s next meeting scheduled for September, the question now becomes whether the central bank will make cuts then.

“The next two months’ data will be pivotal and we see a path to a resumption of the Fed’s easing cycle in the autumn should tariff inflation prove more modest than expected or the labor market show signs of weakness,” Ashish Shah, a chief investment officer at Goldman Sachs, said in a note to clients after the decision was announced on Wednesday.

Nicole Weatherholtz ✉

Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.

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The Fed’s Favorite Inflation Indicator Just Spiked Even Higher


By JOHN HUGH DEMASTRI, CONTRIBUTOR | September 30, 2022

Read more at https://dailycaller.com/2022/09/30/fed-favorite-inflation-measure-up/

Federal Reserve Chair Powell testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington
Graeme Jennings/Pool via REUTERS

The core index of the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation went up in August, despite a historically aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes intended to slow it.

The Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE), which measures the value of goods and services purchased by “persons” residing in the U.S., was down slightly in August from 6.4% to 6.2% annually, but was higher than economists anticipated, according to CNBC. This decline was almost entirely off the back of falling energy prices, with so-called core PCE, which does not consider the more-volatile food and energy indices, increasing in August from 4.7% to 4.9% annually, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

This new data closely mirrors the results of the more well-known Consumer Price Index (CPI), released earlier this month, which also saw core prices rise as overall inflation remained near historic highs. As inflation lingers, investors have grown increasingly concerned that the Fed’s aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes will continue unabated, prompting the Dow Jones Industrial Average to seesaw in and out of a major slump known as a bear market.

The Fed has been consistent at all levels that high interest rates will remain “until the job is done,” even at the cost of jobs or triggering a recession, as Fed Chair Jerome Powel has said multiple times. On Tuesday, Neel Kashkari, head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said that the Fed would not repeat the mistakes of the 1970s by bringing down interest rates too quickly, with Vice Chair Lael Brainard echoing that sentiment in a Friday morning speech, according to CNBC.

This messaging, in conjunction with the Fed’s aggressive rate hike campaign, has led Goldman Sachs to slash its expectations for the S&P 500 stock index by about 16%, anticipating the Fed will raise rates by at least another 1.25% by the end of the year, to 4.5% from 3.25%.

Food, rent and utilities are among the critical products that the Fed anticipates will continue to face significant inflation until next year at the earliest as the Fed struggles to bring inflation back to its target of 2%.

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The Stock Market Officially Collapses Into Bear Market Territory


By JOHN HUGH DEMASTRI, CONTRIBUTOR | September 23, 2022

Read more at https://dailycaller.com/2022/09/23/dow-jones-bear-market/

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell Holds News Conference Following Federal Open Market Committee Meeting
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Why have investors been restricted in buying GameStop shares?

The stock market closed out a week of intense losses with the Dow Jones falling more than 750 points Friday, entering bear market territory amid a wave of investor fears.

At time of writing, the index had, at its lowest point, fallen more than 2.7% during the day to around 29,300 points, with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 down by 2.7% and 2.64% respectively at time of writing. With the Dow Jones officially falling more than 20% from its recent peak in June, stocks will have entered a slump known by investors as a “bear market” if the losses hold when trading ends Friday, according to CNBC. (RELATED: Stocks Stay Volatile As Recession Fears Loom)

The Nasdaq was down by 30.92% this year, with the S&P 500 down 22.98% this year, as of close of business yesterday, according to data from MarketWatch.

“Stocks were overvalued because their nominal price has been fueled by the inflation of the Federal Reserve,” Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “As soon as the Fed took away the punch bowl… what happened? Stocks immediately took a nosedive and are continuing to do so, because the only thing that has been fueling this economic recovery hasn’t been real growth, but again, money creation.”

After wavering early this week as investors awaited the Federal Reserve’s Wednesday announcement of a third interest rate hike in just four months, stocks tumbled, with Goldman Sachs warning clients that investors are preparing for recession and slashing its expectations for the S&P 500 stock index by 16%.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has been clear that he is willing for there to be some economic “pain” in order to combat inflation, even as the Biden administration touts its economic record.

Antoni noted that major market moves such as this are typically driven by the “institutional investment class,” and that individual retail investors typically got crushed unless they had “incredible foresight.” Unless retail investors had an immediate need to sell, Antoni cautioned against doing so, urging retail investors to weather the panic.

“Now we’re faced with the reality of having to do it the hard way, of having to actually grow the economy and not just grow the money supply.” Antoni said.

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Inflation Hits Highest Level In 39 Years


Reported by HARRY WILMERDING | CONTRIBUTOR | December 10, 2021

Read more at https://dailycaller.com/2021/12/10/inflation-consumer-price-index-joe-biden-jerome-powell-bureau-labor-statistics/

joe-biden-november-inflation
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.9% in November, bringing the key inflation indicator’s year-over-year increase to 6.8%, the highest figure in four decades. The CPI’s increase is the largest increase in four decades, up from October’s 6.2% according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report released Friday morning. Experts surveyed by CNBC projected inflation would increase 0.7% in November, translating to a 6.7% gain on a year-over-year basis.

“These are frighteningly high inflation numbers, the likes of which we haven’t seen for decades,” Allen Sinai, chief global economist and strategist at Decision Economics, Inc., told The Wall Street Journal.

The core price index, which measures inflation of goods less food and energy, jumped 0.5% in November, a decrease from October’s 0.6% increase, according to BLS. Price increases in gasoline, shelter, food, used cars and trucks and new vehicles were among the largest contributors to the index’s jump in November, BLS said. Food prices increased 6.1% on a year-over-year basis, and energy prices soared 33.3% over the last year and 3.5% in November.

Meanwhile, the labor market continues struggle to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the emerging Omicron variant has brought new concerns.

“We have tremendous spending by consumers. A lot of people are getting hired. Demand is huge. Monetary policy remains very easy and fiscal stimulus has no precedent in history,” Sinai said.

The U.S. economy added just 210,000 jobs in November, far below experts’ projections of around 573,000, but unemployment slipped to 4.2% from October’s 4.6% figure. The number of Americans who filed new unemployment claims totaled 184,000 in the week ending on Dec. 4 as employers fight to retain workers entering a busy holiday season.

“Looking past the noise, we think claims will eventually hover more consistently around pre-pandemic levels of 220k, assuming the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has only a moderate negative impact on the economy,” Nancy Vander Houten, lead economist at Oxford Economics, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Soaring inflation and falling unemployment have triggered Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to pivot away from pandemic era stimulus programs. Powell signaled that the central bank would wind down its bond-purchasing stimulus, which will lead to earlier-than-expected interest rate hikes.

The central bank is scheduled to meet Dec. 14-15, when a more detailed schedule is slated to be announced.

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November Jobs Report Is One Of The Worst Since Biden Took Office


Reported by HARRY WILMERDING | CONTRIBUTOR | December 03, 2021

Read more at https://dailycaller.com/2021/12/03/november-jobs-report-joe-biden-jerome-powell/

President Biden Arrives Back At The White House
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that the number of jobs created in November is among the lowest initially reported for a single month in 2021.

The U.S. economy added 210,000 jobs in November, marking nearly the lowest number of jobs created in a month since President Joe Biden took office in January.

November’s jobs report was well below economists’ estimate of 573,000, according to CNBC. Additionally, unemployment fell to 4.2% from October’s 4.6% figure, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

The U.S. economy, still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic but now subject to uncertainty related to the Omicron coronavirus variant, appeared to slow in momentum in November, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“Just as Delta derailed the recovery in terms of the labor market, if Omicron behaved like that, I would guess it would hold back any recovery in the labor market,” Justin Weidner, an economist at Deutsche Bank, told the WSJ.

“Greater concerns about the virus could reduce people’s willingness to work in person, which could slow progress in the labor market and intensify supply-chain disruptions,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in Senate Banking Committee testimony on Tuesday.

The BLS initially reported that 194,000 jobs were added to the economy in September, the lowest number of new jobs for a single month in 2021, but that figure was revised substantially in October to 312,000 jobs, CNBC reported.

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