As inflation, interest rates and gas prices soar, I HAVE to ask. What’s more shocking?
That he has so much power and influence over the economy and our pocketbooks, in general? Or that the chair of the Federal Reserve’s name is Jerome Powell and he’s not Black? It’s him not being Black, right? Like, did his parents lose a bet? Both Jerome and Powell are top tier Black names. They’re right up there with Marcus and Williams.
Whatever. On to less important issues…
If you haven’t heard, Jerome in the House, Without a Doubt and the Feds have been fighting for their mf life trying to control the raging inflation in the United States.
Based on my life experiences, there seem to be three stages of grief, with each stage becoming more and more apparent and noticeable. It’s Anger, Denial and finally, Bruh. Jerome Jenkins Powell IV and the Federal Reserve are currently at “Bruh.”
The Federal Reserve recently raised interest rates by 75 bases points, or .75%. “.75%, that’s nothing,” I uttered to myself, even though I probably had a F – in Econ 101. Well, it’s not nothing, unfortunately. This is the highest interest rate increase in 28 years. Jerome and nem ALSO sharply raised their interest rate projections over the next year, which tells us that interest rates will be raised again. Because, again, Jerome is at the “Bruh” phase of grief.
Let’s dig a little deeper, shall we? At this point, you’re thinking to yourself, “Well, Jerome Powell is a Black ass name, both the first and last name, and he out here running the Federal Reserve like a nigga whose rent is due and he’s about $500 short and will use all of his power and influence to come up with them 500 bones, come hell or high water.” And that would be a very astute assumption. If you haven’t realized already, Jerome DeMarcus Powell III and the Federal Reserve have a lot of power over the economy. And our pocketbooks.
Their policies, guidance and decisions are the equivalent of Zeus sending bylaws to his Greek subjects; or Malcom X doing that hand gesture thingy, commanding his Nation of Islam brothers to fall back, as the cop says, “That’s too much power for one man,” or whatever he said in the movie. When Jerome Lamont Powell Jr. raised interest rates this high, with more to come, he is essentially telling us him and the Feds are freaking out and are willing to do whatever they can to stop inflation, which includes risking a recession. Basically, we are in a awful BET movie and Jerome, the central character, is contemplating cooking up that work or robbing Fort Knox in order to make ends meet (It’s not “meat,” right?).
In BET movie standards, we are at the part where the actions taken at the beginning of the movie are coming back to bite us in the ass. Consequences, that’s the word (And also the working title for our BET movie). The consequences of this country dumping trillions of dollars into the economy during the pandemic shutdown has inflated the value of the dollar. All of the stimmy checks used to buy down payments for Hellcats; to buy down payments for F-150’s and whatever everyone else bought, are rearing it’s ugly head. Between gas prices, inflation and the stock market correcting itself because idiots, I mean people overvalued exercise bikes and streaming services, we are essentially, ummm, fucked. Well, short term screwed. Long term, we may not be as screwed. Ya know, like one night stand scre..ok, you get it.
But Jerome “Pookie” Powell just didn’t stop at the interest rate hike nor their “my fault” projections.
Jerome and the Feds also comes out with new predictions/forecasts for the economy, which happens whenever they raise interest rates. In this forecast, they now project lower GDP growth and higher unemployment. This means for us, the consumer, that borrowing costs and interest rates are going to go up and auto loans will get more expensive. All of this will be due to raised interest rates. All of this will be due to the actions taken by the Federal Reserve. And Feds are ok with us being in a recession, as long as it stops inflation. Well, not ok. But if they have to choose inflation or recession, they chose recession. Because Hyper-Inflation means destruction of a society. I learned that while failing Econ 101.
Back to the most important issue…
Jerome Powell is not Black. We now know this. What we also know is that Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve are trying to play catch up. You would think they should’ve predicted this out of control inflation before it actually happened. But they didn’t. They sat there and did nothing. Now they are being reactive, instead of being proactive. Jerome Powell didn’t account for the “what’s the worst that could happen,” projection.
Which is ridiculous. Because if he were Black, that would’ve been the ONLY projection.
Leslie McLemore writes about a lot of different shit for Black With No Chaser. He is also the Takeaway Kang, the greatest baby father to the dopest babymomma, and the father of two beautiful girls, one of which gets on every nerve he has. The other one is sweet…sometimes. So, you know, balance. Sort of.
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