Inflationary pressures are easing and this is a big ship the Fed is steering, almost impossible to get it just right. The pause feels right to most people. Too much more tightening would create fear of a crash and loosening at this point doesn’t seem to make sense at all.

I routinely take classes to the San Francisco Fed. Great learning experience. They have so much cash in their vault, I can’t tell you. It’s stacked five or six tiers high, several hundred feet long and at least 100 feet wide. It’s a warehouse of cold hard cash! There’s tens of billions of dollars there and they take you right to it! Also, you will get a feel for the organization in a way that you can’t get any other way.  Put on your to do list. It’s really interesting.

Currently, the Fed is currently focused on keeping our economic growth going but removing the highly accommodative monetary policy that gave us the lowest interest rates in 40 years. They aren’t stepping on the brakes so much as they are just taking their foot off the gas.  Once that goal is accomplished, the Fed will probably stop raising rates and allow the economy to just roll along until it sees a pattern of it slowing or speeding up and then it will adjust accordingly.  The last series of interest rate hikes weren’t intended to slow the economy so much as just removing the excess and return it to a more neutral environment.  But if they see the economy start to take off, they won’t have any problem at all continuing to raise rates to slow it.