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Statement from Jerome Powell

Statement from Jerome Powell

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Comments (468)

  • cal_dent
    The US drift into Adam Curtis' broad thesis in hypernormalisation(a) continues apace I see. Great to see J Pow putting up a fight but I fear this is all going one way.(a) >We live in a world where the powerful deceive us. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They don't care. We say we care but do nothing.
  • Dusseldorf
    He certainly doesn't beat around the bush here. Very nice too see someone of his stature stand up and call out these shenanigans for what they are.
  • neom
    So I'm sitting here as a Canadian wondering what the American people are going to do? I understand a lot of what the President of The United States says - I even agree with some of it, the problem is I don't feel like we're engaging with the American people anymore. I really wonder where you guys are headed and what it means for the rest of us, I spent 15 years in the states, built a public company there, I really like the Americans, but I don't want annexation. I wonder where you guys are headed.
  • Waterluvian
    Remember early in his first term when he tested waters but the governmental system pushed back and kept him in check? It feels like an out of body experience to look at this and contemplate how much he’s changed about how the U.S. government conducts itself.
  • prodigycorp
    Many times I've disagreed with Powell, but major props for this statement.
  • retrocog
    Its crazy how you can see where things are heading and still be surprised when they arrive there.
  • jacquesm
    Shots fired. Even the republicans will not be able to ignore this and they know that if Powell caves in the American economy will likely collapse. So who will speak up in his defense?
  • davidw
    This is... just crazy. One of those mostly boring bits of plumbing that has been left to professionals throughout the entire 50 years of my life - and they're trying to wreck it.
  • boringg
    Best of luck JPow - that was a perfect statement from the Fed.It seems like theres a bit of an inflection point right now in the US. I wonder how much entropy the system can handle it has to be near a breaking point.
  • cosmicgadget
    I wonder if we'll see another round of resignations at Justice like the Eric Adams thing.Powell normally talks around the political pressure he's been subjected to. Funny to see him call it out right here.
  • throw0101c
    Observation:> Some countries that have prosecuted or threatened to prosecute central bankers for the purpose of political intimidation or punishment for monetary policy decisions: Argentina, Russia, Turkey, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.* https://xcancel.com/jasonfurman/status/2010532384924442645#m* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_FurmanAnd Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC)> If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question.> I will oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed—including the upcoming Fed Chair vacancy—until this legal matter is fully resolved.* https://xcancel.com/SenThomTillis/status/2010514786467959269who sits on the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (which oversees the Fed):* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Committee...The "independence and credibility of the DoJ" line is quite something else.
  • derangedHorse
    I dislike the existence of the Fed, but I dislike the idea of the executive branch being in control of monetary policy even more. I'll be tuning in to see how the case progresses.
  • YY438723874623
    America has reached the inter-departmental warfare stage of failed states it seems. As an appreciator of all sorts of banana republics, kleptocracy and military juntas, this is a very familiar pattern of behavior.
  • hash872
    From an institutional engineering POV (warning- I am a grouchy old former political scientist), it would be interesting to come up with institutional solutions for some of the problems America is facing right now. Specifically I think I'd remove the Attorney General role from the President's authority and give it to Senate, to nominate & confirm exclusively. Let's say 51 votes to confirm and 55 votes to impeach. Even among presidential systems, the US cabinet is unusually presidential-centric. I'm not a big LatAm expert, but I think they typically separate the public prosecutor from the president's nomination capacity.Of course I would strongly prefer to not be a presidential system at all. But if we're discussing post-Trump constitutional reforms that could plausibly pass, I think removing the Attorney General/DOJ from the president's purview and also placing some checks on the pardon power seem doable
  • collinfunk
    It seems like they learned a lot from the Letitia James and James Comey cases, which are going great (not in the way they intended).
  • b00ty4breakfast
    I can't say I'm the biggest fan of the financial apparatus in general but it is more than a little heartening to see someone in the federal government with a spine for once.
  • omnivore
    What an unhinged moment in time. At some point, they'll need to be courageous people with the ability and funds to speak up and say enough. But will they? It does not appear so.
  • igonvalue
    Here's Trump and Powell publicly disagreeing about these exact Fed renovation costs in July 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvYljCN970sPowell corrects him in real-time. Worth watching given today's statement.
  • jshchnz
    this is a big deal, markets gonna tank tomorrow morning... and then realize AI is still a thing and recover
  • hazard
    And of course equity futures immediately dropped on the news
  • nipponese
    Unprecedented times call for unlikely youtube heroes.
  • closingreunion
    The titanic amount of generational neglect that has allowed even a fraction of voters to look at Trump for more than a second and find him qualified for any public office is truly fantastic.This is one of the clear examples that Trump is seeing Putin's Russia as a model for his vision for the USA.
  • AnimalMuppet
    "The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President."Thank you, Mr. Powell. We really want interest rates set to serve the people, not the whims of the President.
  • AgentOrange1234
    Wow that's bold.
  • ball_of_lint
    Powell for president please
  • Loughla
    Holy shit.So our monetary policy will be just set at the arbitrary whims of the president if this new scheme works.Why does all of this feel like it's just sliding completely out of hand? Am I just being a doomer?
  • egberts1
    It all started with all grants and department expenditures being tagged with the employee ID, of supervisory.Latest 2024 budget expenses, a fairly good percentage were chocked with no ID, no supervisor or delgated authority.Better now, no ID, no money from Treasury.
  • jb1991
    Venezuela, Greenland, and this. Anyone notice how these extreme events all happened around the same time of the Epstein files getting released with highly publicized questions about all the redactions? It certainly seems like a distraction game.
  • jordanscales
    Threats like the ones Powell's receiving would be the end of any other presidency. Why tech elites continue to align themselves with this clownshow will be a source of incredible shame that I'll hold onto forever.
  • tolerance
    For people who don’t know what this is about and why everyone else is concerned…me neither.2025-10-03"You Decide: What Does the Fed’s Rate Cut Mean?”: <https://cals.ncsu.edu/news/you-decide-what-does-the-feds-rat...>2025-12-10“A divided Federal Reserve cuts interest rates for a 3rd straight time”: <https://alaskapublic.org/news/national/2025-12-10/a-divided-...>"‘Silent Dissents’ Reveal Growing Fed Resistance to Powell’s Cuts”: <https://archive.is/JDlB0#selection-1235.0-1235.64>2025-12-30"Fed Minutes Reveal Split on Interest Rates Headed Into 2026”: <https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/fed...>"Deep Divide Inside Fed Raises Questions About Timing of Further Rate Cuts”: <https://archive.is/7XdPo>"Trump says he will 'probably' sue Fed's Powell”: <https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/trump-says-he-will-probabl...>HTH
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  • bulbar
    Thank God there's one important institution that can not be forced or bullied into compliance. Powell will go down in history as hero.
  • laidoffamazon
    I’m aghast but numb to this now.The biggest question for me now is how the usual defenders of this lawless administration will try to defend this or both sides it.
  • duxup
    Trump can’t tolerate anyone in government who isn’t a total Trump sycophant.
  • epolanski
    One of the very few lonely voices.It's quite impressive how scared everybody is of this administration. News outlets, international leaders even in face of threats, big tech, including the delusional Musk who thought he could've handled the president's rage.Hell even his own party is scared of speaking up, you either fall in line or you risk falling victim of the most vicious direct attacks, even if you've been a huge and core voice for the president, see senator Marjorie Green.From Russia, to Belarus, from the Philippines to Argentina, from Hungary to Poland it's crystal clear what a failure of democracy it is to have a presidential republic.
  • trashface
    I wonder if the fed's lawyers advise him on this or if he has to use his own lawyers
  • anon
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  • JKCalhoun
    Wild. Some kind of fucking banana republic.
  • et-al
    What's a pleb supposed to do now? Convert every paycheck to BTC, gold, or EUR?
  • olalonde
    As a side note, is there a compelling reason why interest rates aren't set algorithmically? I assume human intuition isn't really a factor in setting them. This would eliminate concerns about political motivation.
  • burnt-resistor
    America needs more public administrators like Powell in POTUS, SCOTUS, and COTUS: seemingly boring, reasonable, decent, professional, and competent.
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  • Aurornis
    Terrible. Trump was even the person who nominated Powell in 2017, and now he’s being squeezed for doing the job of Federal Reserve Chair instead of bending to demands.
  • jmclnx
  • hypeatei
    They're already pursuing a case against another Fed board member, and now this? I have a feeling these two cases are going to suffer the same fate as the Letita James and James Comey cases: thrown out due to incompetence and/or malfeasance. It's a disgusting, clear weaponization of the DOJ.MAGA, of course, tried to accuse Biden of weaponizing them during his term so that they could justify the Trump 2.0 revenge tour. Now we're here.
  • don_neufeld
    Economists: The interest rate on US Treasuries is often used as a benchmark for the “risk free rate”Trump: Hold my beer.
  • rvz
    So this is the bar for the next country to surpass the US as the world's economic super-power, if this continues it's most likely going to be China to surpass the US.An opportunity for the EU to stop its bureaucracy and cleanup its act. If it cannot convince anyone that they are next, then one can argue that democracy is completely finished.If this nonsense continues it will be the UAE + Saudi Arabia + China, cutting off the west and that's that.
  • dpc_01234
    The US government entered a debt spiral a while ago (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A091RC1Q027SBEA), and needs lower interest rates to service its tremendous debt while trying to inflate it away by printing money. That's all it comes down to. For decades fiscal conservatives were warning about it and were laughed at. Now that we're are the end game the inevitable shitshow will become apparent. You can hate Trump (rightly so), but as much as he did contribute to the problem directly, the problem is larger and systemic, and anyone else in office would have the exact same problem now.
  • anon
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  • camillomiller
    What about another nice dinner with all the Silicon Valley CEOs paying their respect to the orange dictator? I'm sure that will appease him. What a bunch of spineless puppets.
  • idiotsecant
    If Trump does try to politicize the fed he is going to do the one thing that the American political system will not tolerate - messing with the money of the most powerful capital class in the world. Normally, the incentives of this class are most aligned with grinding the rest of us into a fine powder suitable for lubrication of the engines of commerce, but hopefully just this once they'll come to the rescue. My only fear is that the short term quarterly obsessions that we've built might actually lead to some business supporting this decision out of a suicidal drive for short term gains.
  • burnt-resistor
    (Boring, important thing that holds civilization together.)Dunning-Kruger effect billionaire: We don't need that. What's it even for anyhow? I'm not paying for it. All these naysaying wimps and freeloaders say we can't live without out. I will use my unelected government position and bling chainsaw to cut fraud, waste, and abuse to eliminate red tape and unnecessary big government regulation. And I demand a negative tax rate, subsidies, and lucrative government contracts! Rawr!
  • arminiusreturns
    If you are a complete normie, turn back now, it's gonna get conspiratorial. Otherwise, read on for some insights.First, one must understand that the Federal Reserve was the main trojan horse vehicle for the European banking families into America. Read any number of good books, starting with the latest edition of G. Edward Griffins "The Creature from Jekyll Island".But all that is mostly known already to those who have payed attention and done the reading... so whats next?My conclusion is that America is being setup, in multiple ways (fall guy for global empire, etc), but one major setup that is going on right now is a twofer: 1) Jack up the US economy at any time by raising rates and unraveling the ponzi scheme and 2) If you do 1), you have the perfect excuse to try to implement some CBDC-esque new system, but this time with much more surveillance tech, for example unified ledgers that merge digital identity with financial identity, with ESG and social credit style added on. Read Whitney Webb for more on the structures being put in place for this.So what is happening is that Trump knows the people that control the Fed, for whom the Fed chair is a mere mouthpiece, really want to suddenly and unexpectedly hike rates and soon, but Trump doesn't want it to happen under his last term, so he has been doing major backroom maneuvering to influence the Fed every time a rate-change date is coming up. Essentially he wants to kick the can to the next POTUS, but since the Fed is technically independent, it really can do whatever it wants, all he can do is fire after the fact. My guess is they will drop it on him late term, a perfect excuse to usher in the political pendulum swing of the hegelian game they play with us.To me, that this backroom maneuvering is becoming more public tells me they really want to do the sudden rate hike.Want a decent intro to the real fed? Try this video from the great James Corbett: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IJeemTQ7Vk
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  • jgalt212
    Trump is, of course, wrong. But the independence of the Fed being at stake is a myth. Since the bursting of the dot com bubble, the Fed has operated as if the well being of the investor class is their number one priority.
  • JumpinJack_Cash
    I am surprised by the negative comments, the low interest rates = better thesis has always been somewhat popular on HN , now just because Trump is saying it (and operating to get there) it becomes an issue or something not to be aligned with.There are countless comments and discussions on this board about how:1) interest rates should be zero,2) interest rates being non-zero create a misallocation of capital where there is a return on an investment without any ingenuity or creation behind3) Banks are too risk averse to lending and their risk averse behavior is due to the risk free rate they enjoy when they park money at the Fed and when they buy T-billsNo matter how little ingenuity or creation is required to keep afloat a zombie company or a dubious startup, for sure it's a notch higher than what happens when that money is parked at the Fed or invested in t-bills...
  • macinjosh
    This is logical end game of having these economic controls at all. Put a steering wheel on it someone will drive it.A true free market isn’t at whims of any one person.
  • the_real_cher
    Monero up around 20% today.
  • brcmthrowaway
    Does anyone have a steelman argument for this?
  • pixelatedindex
    I’m a little shocked to see the quality of some comments here - I would expect a more grounded discussion. This is like Reddit / YouTube comment history. Someone please tell me this is a Wendy’s.Sure the Fed isn’t perfect. But we don’t really have a better solution as of now because our financial systems are extremely powerful and anyone in office would love to abuse it if they can.Sure, the renovations are ridiculous. But it’s not like this administration is austere in the slightest, so that’s a bit rich. Not to mention the cronyism prevalent across the cabinet.
  • voidfunc
    Exciting two weeks to start the year!
  • shrubble
    I’m of the opinion from the old Yiddish proverb: “when the cat and dog are fighting, the mouse is safe”.If the admin is fighting with the Federal Reserve, it means they are not focused on figuring out how to further screw us over…