Kristen Schwab

Well, what do you think is going to happen when the Fed meets next week?

What do you think the decision will be?

And what will they be looking forward to make future decisions?

This is the question about knowing what's in Jay Powell's mind.

You know, there is a lot of, you know, speculating, obviously, about whether they're going to continue to hold, whether they're going to give any indication about whether they're going to push

rate cuts further back into the year.

I mean, this is a Fed that does not like to commit itself to decisions ahead of time.

But I think that what will be more interesting is going to be the way Powell explains how they're thinking through all of this, because it was still during his chairmanship that we saw a huge spike in gas prices after Russia invaded Ukraine.

I wonder if there's going to be any lessons, if that's the appropriate word that the Fed is using to understand

whether a spike in gas prices is something that they can treat as temporary, if it's something that they know how to watch for.

But, you know, all of this is going to be in explaining what they're going to be able to decide next week, obviously.

Yeah.

I mean, it speaks to, right, how much we're kind of in the mud of everything right now, which kind of leads me to a bigger question about, I mean, do you think this is a turning point for the economy?

What's your take?

Are you feeling glass half empty or glass half full?

I think I feel encouraged by the fact that consumers still seem quite resilient.

Their sentiment might not always be there, but if they're continuing to spend, we've seen that as a pretty good tell on the economy's underlying strength.

That said, I feel like we've been talking for years about needing some sort of prolonged period of certainty to really have any sense as to where we're going.

And this just feels like moving that goalpost so much farther down the line.

so much farther.