They Sat, They Spoke, They Did Nothing: The FED’s Immovable Feast! 💤

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Imagine, kind reader, the grand halls of Washington: papers rustling, shoes polishing marble floors to a shine that could blind a banker. After two days (May 6 and 7, but who’s counting?), those mighty sorcerers of the US Federal Reserve have waved their bejeweled hands—only to announce: “Let things be! Interest rates shall sit stubbornly at 4.25% to 4.5%.” All the while, President Trump, somewhere in a gilded room, stamps his foot like an impatient child in a pastry shop, hollering for Jerome Powell to loosen the purse strings because, as he declares, “inflation is banished!” 🎩👃

FOMC Meeting: US Federal Reserve Keeps Rates Unchanged

The Fed, never one to disappoint with their oratory theater, delivered a press release so thrilling that even wallpaper nearly peeled from excitement. “We have maintained the target range—still 4.25% to 4.5%,” they proclaimed. (Markets, of course, yawned collectively, having anticipated the show’s ending long before the curtains rose.) Traders, ever the hopeful lot, bet on Jerome and his committee to keep rates still; apparently, they had a side pool betting how many times Powell would blink.

This makes the third act in an epic play of “Let’s Do Nothing,” after January and March, when similar decisions were made amidst loud muttering. Prior to that, our heroes at the US Central Bank had themselves engaged in a spree of rate-cutting: September, November, and December 2024 were all marked with grand flourishes—snip! snip! snip! But now? Lethargy reigns.

Jerome Powell, keeper of the nation’s most envied gray hairs, clings to his rates like a man clutching the last crust of bread at a Petersburg banquet. Trump, peering in through the window with hopeful eyes, keeps insisting: “No inflation! Cut the rates, Powell, cut them!” One can only imagine Powell’s sigh—heard from Manhattan to Odessa.

The Fed, ever mysterious, suggests that inflation is “somewhat elevated,” though one wonders if they secretly mean their blood pressure. Uncertainty about the economic outlook, they say, has increased—perhaps from tariffs, or perhaps from reading too many contradictory economic reports. (Powell once warned about all of it—now he mumbles it between spoonfuls of borscht.) Unemployment and inflation risks, they add with great gravity, are mounting like uncollected laundry.

Yet, amidst this high drama, CoinGape’s scrupulous scribes report: US Nonfarm payrolls grew by 177,000 in April—far above the market’s dull expectation of 133,000. (Someone in statistics must’ve spilled their tea.) Meanwhile, unemployment sits smugly at 4.2%, neither higher nor lower, indifferent to all the speeches and press releases swirling about.

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2025-05-07 21:33