Vikas Patel

The Fed presidents’ dissents seem like a very strong message to Warsh that you are not getting interest rate cuts anytime soon. They could have easily gone along with the FOMC majority and given speeches to elaborate on their views. The dissents are a message.

NEW: There were *four* dissents on the Fed’s rate pause. Three bank presidents wanted to ditch the easing bias, and a governor dissented for a rate cut. The last meeting with four dissents was in 1992.

This morning the Inspector General for the Federal Reserve has been asked to scrutinize the building costs overruns – in the billions of dollars – that have been borne by taxpayers. The IG has the authority to hold the Federal Reserve accountable to American taxpayers. I expect a comprehensive report in short order and am confident the outcome will assist in resolving, once and for all, the questions that led this office to issue subpoenas. Accordingly, I have directed my office to close our investigation as the IG undertakes this inquiry. Note well, however, that I will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so.

At his confirmation hearing, Warsh dismissed core PCE as "rough swag" and said he'd prefer to focus on better gauges of underlying inflation like median or trimmed mean. This got attention because Dallas Fed trimmed mean was 2.3% in February (y/y)—well below core PCE at 3.0%.

The Fed Chair hearing did not help the perception of a tainted chair selection process. The unwillingness to disagree with the administration on any policies or who won the 2020 election did not project independence. There will be work to counter the sock puppet analogy image.