by Jon Wolfenbarger
Mises.org
Wall Street cheered Fed Chair Jay Powell’s annual Jackson Hole speech on Friday with a stock market rally that erased the losses seen earlier in the week. Wall Street interpreted his speech as signaling that the Fed will shift to a more “dovish” stance and likely cut rates at their September 17 meeting.
Did that really happen? Did Powell really cave in to Trump’s incessant demands for more money printing?
Let’s see what this economic central planner actually said.
Powell Can Do No Wrong…Just Ask Him
Like all good bureaucrats, Jay Powell is all about taking credit when things go right and blaming others when things go wrong. He started his Jackson Hole speech by saying that the “the balance of risks appears to be shifting” between inflation, which had been the bigger Fed concern in recent years, and unemployment, which has become more of a concern after last month’s terrible employment report.