Powell is still Fed chair

 

Kevin Warsh wasn't sworn in as Fed chair on Friday and Powell is still in charge because Warsh has so many assets to unload to meet ethics requirements he couldn't get 'em all done on time lol

 So the bond vigilantes threw a party and sold off, spiking yields across the board 1.44% on the day, throwing down the gauntlet at Warsh, daring him to cut in the face of all the chaos Trump is causing.

The 20-year soared to 5.14%.

Yields are up 2.8% in the aggregate since the beginning of the month.

6% inflation is knocking on the door.

Inflation rate projected to hit 6% in the second quarter, top economic forecasters say

 

 

 

Kevin Warsh confirmed as Fed chair 54-45 by the US Senate, takes over from Powell on Friday

 Kevin Warsh wins Senate confirmation as the next Federal Reserve chair

... In the most divisive vote ever for a Fed chair, Warsh, 56, won confirmation to take over for Jerome Powell, who has served in the top leadership position since 2018 and whose term will expire Friday.

The Senate voted 54-45 to confirm Warsh, ending a months long saga that began in the summer of 2025 and included an extensive search for Powell’s successor. The vote was almost completely along party lines, with only Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. John Fetterman crossing over to vote for Warsh, who becomes the 11th Fed chair of the modern banking era.

Powell will stay on at the Fed as he has two years left in his term as governor. ... 

The Jerome Powell Fed Chair era draws to a close effective May 15, but Powell could remain a Fed governor until his term ends in January 2028

Fed holds rates steady but with highest level of dissent since 1992

... In what may have been Chair Jerome Powell’s final meeting at the helm, the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee voted to hold the benchmark funds rate in a range between 3.5%-3.75%. Markets had been pricing in a 100% chance of no change. ...

It wasn't much of a dissent when the vote to hold rates steady was 11-1. Three of the eleven simply disagreed that right now the Fed should say as it does in the official statement that it remains open to new information which might suggest additional rate cuts in the future, when in their opinion that sends the wrong signal when inflation remains as elevated as it is at present.

Jerome Powell says he will continue to serve as a Fed governor, calls Trump criticism ‘unprecedented’  

... “My decisions on these matters will continue to be guided entirely by what I believe is in the best interest of the institution and the people we serve after my term as chair ends on May 15, and will continue to serve as a governor for a period of time to be determined,” he added. ...

Stock investors fared very well under Powell. Bond investors, not so much 

...  the S&P 500 rallied 14.7% annually under Powell, the third best performance for Fed chairs going back to 1970, Bespoke Investment Group found. ...

“He believed in easy money. He voted for all the QEs. He voted for zero interest rates,” Boockvar said. “It’s only when inflation mugged him ... that he became more hawkish ... .”

But the problem with accommodative monetary policy is, “Easy money gets investors drunk on things, and puts beer goggles on them,” Boockvar said. ’Sometimes it ends up OK, but other times it ends up in rampant inflation.”

 ... The Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index that aims to track all U.S. investment-grade debt returned just under 2% annually during Powell’s tenure, far below the average of 6.5% since the 1970s, according to Bespoke. ... 

Analysis: The Warsh revolution is coming. Powell won’t stand in the way. 

... the only major challenge for Warsh, as far as Powell is concerned, will be driving consensus within the Fed for where to set interest rates. Wednesday’s dissents suggest that won’t be easy. But Powell, whom Warsh has described as a failed chair who chose inflation, went out of his way to say Warsh is up to the task.

The chair’s job is to “create consensus” among the Fed’s voters and to “be inside their thinking,” Powell said.

Warsh “has the capabilities, skills to be very good at that,” Powell said.

 

If Warsh cuts interest rates in this environment, he'll be choosing inflation, too.

Inflation is very painful for the people, but for a government which absolutely refuses to get its fiscal house in order Powell's choice of inflation was the only medicine available to him, faced as he was with a national debt snowballing toward $40 trillion and the moon after that, and desperately in need of devaluation. 

As an inflation fighter, Jerome Powell turned out to be twice as bad as Arthur Burns

Under Powell core pce inflation exceeded 10Y yield for 4 consecutive years (2020-2023).

Under Burns it was for only 2 (1974-1975).

The Bernank was Fed chair in 2012 when inflation only just barely outran 10Y yield.

 

When the going gets tough, cave lol

 DOJ drops criminal probe of Fed Chair Powell, removes hurdle for Warsh confirmation

Mad King Ludwig can't get Kevin Warsh confirmed on time, throws another tantrum at Powell

 Powell staying on as acting chair until Trump can get his shit together would be customary procedure, not an anomaly.

 Trump threatens to fire Powell if Fed chair doesn’t leave office on his own

 Fed nominee Warsh filings detail vast wealth, far exceeding past chairs

 ... Warsh’s filings detail roughly 1,800 individual assets. Many individual items are identified as being subject to “pre-existing confidentiality obligations” that prevent him from specifying the underlying assets.

Warsh in the filings pledges to divest these assets if confirmed. ...

Bond yields through March 2026 have ignored Fed interest rate cuts which commenced in September 2024

 

Fed chair Jerome Powell didn't say the oil shock will be transitory, but he might as well have

 

 ... Powell said raising rates now could have negative effects on the economy later. He noted that Fed rate moves have a lagged impact on the economy, so tightening here wouldn’t help the inflationary impact of the Iran war.

“By the time the effects of a tightening in monetary policy take effect, the oil price shock is probably long gone, and you’re weighing on the economy at a time when it’s not appropriate. So the tendency is to look through any kind of a supply shock,” he added. ...

More.

Mistaken yet again.

We have permanently higher prices across the board as a result of the COVID shock. 

Reality has a funny way of jamming seemingly interminable rosy expectations

 Markets now see the Fed’s next move as a potential rate hike as inflation fears mount

... Traders in the futures market pushed the probability of a rate increase by the end of 2026 to 52% on Friday morning, the first time it has crossed the 50% threshold, according to the CME Group FedWatch tool. ... 

 

Larry Kudlow has really devolved, falsely calling Fed Chair Powell the Fed’s first forever board member

Larry knows that's a lie.

He knows it's Senator Thom Tillis who is stopping Kevin Warsh from getting a Fed chair confirmation hearing, not Jerome Powell.

But he never mentions that.

Truly disgraceful.

I guess Larry wants no one in charge at the Fed when Powell's term expires on May 15. 

Meanwhile Alan Greenspan remained as Fed chair in 1996 pending confirmation for his next term, which took almost four months, and Marriner Eccles stayed on as Fed chair for over two months after his term expired, and on the board of governors after that from 1948-1951. G. William Miller stayed on as Fed chair for over a month in 1978 after his term expired, and Chair Powell himself had to wait over three months in 2022 for confirmation to his second term.

But Larry doesn't mention any of that either, because he's a liar.  

Powell is doing his duty while Mad King Ludwig tries to wreck everything he touches, and Larry Kudlow has become nothing but Trump's partisan hack.

The New York Sun and Real Clear Politics should be ashamed of themselves for circulating this trash.  

Powell's Bizarre Plan To Stay On at the Fed

Larry Kudlow, New York Sun

Core pce inflation, the Fed's key inflation indicator, went to 2.996% year over year in December 2025, the highest reading since April 2024, 2025 comes in at 2.8%, 65% elevated above the 2000-2020 average of 1.7%

Does anyone in leadership really care about what this persistent high inflation is doing to America?

 

White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett, thankfully passed over for Fed chair, wants NY Fed authors punished for tariff paper he disagrees with

What a jerk. 

 Hassett says authors of New York Fed tariff study should be disciplined: ‘Worst paper I’ve ever seen’

... The people associated with this paper should presumably be disciplined ... 

 

 

Winning . . .

All today: 

Bill to fund DHS fails in the Senate

 

Judge blocks Pete Hegseth’s censure of Sen. Mark Kelly over troops video, for now

 

Fed chair drama: Tillis pours cold water on off-ramp for Powell criminal probe

 

Trump administration will end immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota: Homan

 

 

 

The bond market has voted Nay Nay on the Fed's interest rate cuts which started in September 2024, but I repeat myself

 Worries about softening employment have been entirely misplaced. Jobless claims have been FLAT for four consecutive years.

The Fed was wrong about jobs, just like it was wrong about inflation being transitory.

 

The New York Times on the global economy had me and then it lost me

Because it, like too many commentators, uses an obsolete dollar index in DXY, which measures dollar strength or weakness relative to just SIX currencies: EUR, JPY (!), GBP (!), CAD (!), SEK (!), CHF (!).

 

The Federal Reserve has developed broader indices weighted to the countries the U.S. trades with the most.

 

U.S. GDP is $31.1 trillion. 

EURO ZONE GDP: $16.5 trillion.

Japan: $4.3 trillion.

Great Britain: $3.6 trillion.

Canada: $2.3 trillion.

Sweden: $0.6 trillion.

Switzerland: $1 trillion.

Global GDP: $117 trillion.

 

 The Global Economy’s Warning Signals Are Broken

 

 ... It’s as if cars, instead of slowing down at a flashing yellow light as expected, started speeding up. ...

 

The traditional connection between the American economy’s performance and the value of the dollar has also been snapped. Uncertainty tends to increase the dollar’s value compared with other currencies as investors seek a safe haven in risky times. But the dollar has sunk to its lowest level in years. ...

 

Analysts backed down on their predictions that Mr. Trump’s tariff blitz last spring would cause higher prices ... 

 

Even by DXY standards, the dollar is not weak at 97, well within its long term average range between 95 and 105.

 

And The New York Times is ignoring that wholesale prices increased at a higher rate in 2025 than in either 2024 or 2023. 

 

Anyway, you know what happens when people ignore the flashing yellow:

 

Traffic fatalities surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research highlights the fact that disadvantaged communities bore the brunt of the increase and calls for holistic solutions to promote equitable access to safe transportation.

 

 

Gold and silver plunge after Trump picks more pragmatic Kevin Warsh to head the Fed over dove Kevin Hassett

 Gold and Silver tumble as Trump’s Fed Chair pick Warsh seen as preserving central bank independence

... Claudio Wewel, FX strategist at J. Safra Sarasin Sustainable Asset Management, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday that a “perfect storm” of geopolitical tensions had helped precious metals move higher this year, pointing to the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Washington’s threats to use military force in Greenland and Iran.

More recently, he said, speculation over who would be nominated as the next Fed chair had been influencing metal markets.

“The market has clearly been pricing the risk of a much more dovish contender, that’s been largely helping the gold price along with other precious metal prices. Over the last 24 hours, the news flow has changed a little bit,” Wewel said, prior to Trump’s announcement. ...

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell says economic activity has been solid lol

 10-year Treasury yield rises after Fed keeps rates steady, notes ‘solid’ economy

... “Available indicators suggest that economic activity has been expanding at a solid pace. Job gains have remained low, and the unemployment rate has shown some signs of stabilization,” the post-meeting statement said. “Inflation remains somewhat elevated.” ... 

“I think, and many of my colleagues think, it’s hard to look at the incoming data and say the policy is significantly restrictive at this time,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a press conference. ...

The economy should be three times the size it is, $90.4 trillion in GDP instead of $31.1 trillion.

 

 

Core pce inflation averaged 1.61% year over year under Trump 1.0, but through eleven months of 2025 it averages 2.79%, 73% higher

This higher inflation level, measured on a year over year basis, has persisted for 19-months from April 2024. We're just going sideways, not coming down. 

Next we'll hear from Trump that this is the new normal and that higher inflation is good akshully.

No, the Fed started cutting in September 2024 in error, obviously, and Trump wants the Fed to cut some more.

Meanwhile Jeff Cox for CNBC is just phoning in the story: 

Fed’s main gauge shows inflation at 2.8% in November, edging further away from target

... The personal savings rate rose in November to 3.5%, down 0.2 percentage point from the prior month. ...

How does the personal saving rate rise when it's down 0.2, Jeff? 

Yes, the personal saving rate fell from 3.7% the prior month to 3.5% in November.

People are paying for higher prices at the expense of saving. 

 

Trump attack on Powell causes Senate Republicans Tillis and Murkowski to threaten to block his future nominees to the Fed

Good. 

Powell investigation: Drumbeat of Republican opposition grows on Capitol Hill