Message from the Fed: we know nothing but anything is possible

The Fed chair had two messages to deliver yesterday. The first is that he and his colleagues on the FOMC are incapable of predicting the implications of the new Gulf War. Although new economic projections were published, as is customary at the end of a quarter, Jerome Powell recommended ignoring them, given the magnitude of the uncertainty. Hopes of a rate cut are fading even further. The second is that Jerome Powell does not intend to leave the Fed until the case against him has been definitively closed. President Trump's war on the independence of the Fed does not appear to have been much better planned than his war on Iran.