Jim Power

But to me, the more interesting point about the Fed meeting on Wednesday night was Jay Powell, his last meeting in charge of the Fed.

But he says he is going to hang around until early 2028 as a governor.

He does not have to leave just because he steps down as a chair.

Trump obviously wants him out, but he said that he's going to be much less visible over the remainder of his tenure as a governor.

And he was asked by journalists, what do you mean by that?

And he hid behind the podium.

That seems to be the highlight of that meeting.

But central bankers on a serious level or on a serious note are faced with an amazing challenge at the moment because there is no doubt about it.

The impact of the ongoing crisis, which shows no signs of ending economically, very, very negative.

It's a question of the depth and duration of this crisis to determine what economic impact it is.

Inflation is going to rise and

For central bankers, that's a problem.

Do you think I'm correct in my assessment that the risks to rates are just rising at the moment?

uh no it's uh just looking at where bond is are the last time i looked the 10 year in the uk was at 5.06 percent uh 10 year in states 445 uh germany is over three percent so uh

And that is feeding into the higher rates that people coming off fixed rate mortgages are facing into.

It's a horror scenario coming on top of an economic backdrop in the euro area and the UK that was already pretty modest prior to February 28th.

So I think we're in for a tough year, aren't we?

Yeah, in the States, we got first quarter growth today, Thursday, 2% growth, lower than expected.

Consumer spending slowed significantly, up just 1.6% in the quarter.

And of course, if you look at the investment component was strong, driven by AI, without that AI investments, the US economic performance would have been a whole lot worse.