Hey guys, it's Sasha. A few hours ago, a couple of Russian pranksters called Volvan and Lexus published a prank call with Jerome Powell on Russian TV you can see three videos on their channel on the Russian version of YouTube where one of them pretends to be Ukraine's President Vladimir Zielinski and Jerome Powell openly shares a whole bunch of sensitive non-public information. On the call, the Market is already pricing in two more rate two more uh, quarter percentage Point raid hikes. We'll look around after we make those two and we'll say uh, you know, should we do any more, you can watch these Originals on their Channel but they also have put up an English language version without the translation on Rumble And there are two major issues here.

First, joinpal opened the admits that the FED is intentionally crashing the economy even though inflation is falling Jordan Powell also admits that the FED will be doing two more rate hikes at the point when this interview is recorded, even though the last two were completely unnecessary and he says it doesn't matter what happens, they're going to do the raid hikes anyway. Data is irrelevant, so now have massive question marks over the impartiality of the Federal Reserve where using data to make rational policy decisions using the latest available data seems to be less important than playing politics and doing whatever the it is that they want to be doing now. I am going to play parts of this interview I'm going to share my thoughts with you in a second. apologies in advance: Some of those thoughts may come with raw language, but here is the second problem: What the actual is Jerome Power doing talking to two Russian pranksters from Russian TV How bad are the US government communication channels that the chairman of the FED arguably the most critical person in the United States in a whole country when it comes to finances was so easily tricked into talking to a prankster with a funny Eastern European accent? If this is the level of scrutiny the Jerome Power and his team give to disclosing material non-public information to a random Russian guy on a video call.

How much scrutiny does this idiot give to analyzing financial data or making key rate decisions that directly impact the lives of millions of people? How much does he actually check and actually verify that what he is doing is right? How hard does he interrogate data Or is data not really important because your own Powell's analysis follows the decide on the answer first, find supporting evidence later, kind of approach. This is a massive problem and there are absolutely no excuses here. I Guess there is a theoretical possibility that this prank is fake and you're in Power will somehow deep faked in the video, although in the last few minutes, the FED themselves have come out and said that this genuinely happened. So given this probably actually happened, this is a big problem and you're In Power is publicly showcasing a level of incompetence that should be an immediate sackable offense.

sackable being the first part of something that should, in theory really lead to prison. So let's listen to what your own power has to say. Do you have your prediction about inflation in the US I Do Yes, our policy rate quite a lot last year in order to slow the growth of the U.S economy and and enable inflation to come down. And we think that's working now.

and I think we're very much on track to get inflation back down to our Target, which is two percent. And yes, the policy is sort of working now. Inflation is on the way down. Analysis is just five percent, having peaked at 9.1 last June.

The problem with the FED is that they don't seem to understand how trajectories work and make decisions about the future. not based on a reasonable forecast of things in the future, not based on the latest available data because it's irrelevant. They seem to be basing their entire policy only on what happened at some point in the past where they get to decide what is relevant in the past and what is not. This is what: Jordan Powell completely up in 2021 and didn't increase rates until way too late in Spring 2022, even though inflation was exploding and it was obvious he was busy giving speeches saying inflation is transitory like a complete clown and now we see the exact same thing happening in reverse all key inflation indicators are down.

All of them are trending down, lagging indicators like shelter and are reducing, which means that they will also drag downwards in the future. But here we have Jerome Powell accelerating from driving at 80 to driving at 150 miles per hour while staring in the rear view mirror. Now, inflation recently fell from six percent to five percent in just one month in March. But although this interview only dropped to this morning, I Actually think it was recorded some time ago because in another part of the interview, they discussed the average weekly working hours in the US.

The Uh Department of Labor says as always that everything is fine and the length of the working week in hours is being reduced. It was uh, if I'm not wrong 34.4 in November Uh 34 5 hours were expected in December but it turned out to be Uh 34.3 So the most recent data in their interview was referencing November and then subsequently December numbers, which means it was probably filmed between January 6 when that data first came out, and February 3rd when the January data would have come out. But at the December Fomc meeting, the FED increased rates to a target range of 4.25 to 4.5 percent and the Dot Plot from that meeting. Indeed, that the majority of the committee members thought that the target rate would be sitting at five to five point, two five percent.

So before the first Fomc meeting in 2023, the Fed was expecting three more 25 basis point increases and the first Fomc meeting this year concluded on February 1st. So based on that, I am guessing that this interview must have been filmed immediately after that meeting on the concluded in the afternoon of February 1st and before the new data, unemployment came out on February 3rd in the same interview, Jerome Powell got a question about what he thought about the Davos event. The question in itself is not really interesting, but Davos happened in late January So it was very recent at that point in time and it very much lines up with the timeline. And here's something funny: The Fomc meets in the boardroom of The Echoes building in Washington DC right in the middle of the U.S government territory.

so Jerome Powell was in Washington DC All of his advisors and staff were probably there because you know Fomc meetings are kind of like a big deal. and despite all of that, the prankster still managed to get a hold of him. They managed to get a meeting, they spoke to him, He took time out of his very busy schedule to speak to a fake Ukraine president. This is pathetic.

and here is Jordan Powell talking about wages. You also pointed out that though too the average work week there are, there are some modest signs that the labor market is weakening, and for example, the number of hours worked per week ticked down a very small amount. That is a sign of of a slight softening in labor market conditions. That is true.

In addition, wages which have been very, very high, we count, we track wages quite carefully the the increases. They're still very high increases, but the increases have have been declining a little bit. And that's a good thing because real, too high wage inflation causes price inflation. Our mandate is for Price inflation, not wage inflation.

So Jerome Powell says that his mandate is for Price inflation and not not wage inflation. Which is funny because the Fomc Mandate is a pretty short list of things. I Know he's old, but you think the guy running the thing would maybe be able to remember what the three things that the Fomc's actually responsible for? If you're watching Jerome Let me remind you, on the Fed's own website, there was this useful page that says monetary policy. What are its goals? How does it work? Oh, I wonder.

Well, in the very first sentence of the first paragraph, it says the Federal Reserve Act mandates that Federal Reserve conducts monetary policy so as to promote effectively the goals of Maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates. So the FED is responsible for stable prices and they are also responsible for maximum employment. And you know what? wage inflation is a massively important factor in employment? So yes, Jerome you actually are on the hook for wage inflation. Crazy, right? And printing a shitload of money, then not increasing rates until it is way too late is your fault because you did both of those things.

And you did those things because you are incompetent talking with competent. Let's watch a bit more of this interview with a fake Ukraine president. In terms of this year, most forecasts call for the US economy to continue to grow, but at a pretty subdued level. so growth of less than one percent.

let's say. but we had. We would tell you that that a recession is almost as likely as as very slow growth. Um, so that's that.

That's a fact. And and I think that is partly because of uh of us having raised rates quite a bit. So Jerome Powell sits there openly admitting that their increases in interest rates by themselves are potentially the main reason why the U.S economy may get hit this year and we know inflation is on the way down. But it seems Australia's power understanding of how inflation works is similar to some of the comments that I see in my videos uh, inflation with five percent which is basically more than two percent.

Therefore, it is too high. so in order to reach two percent, we must keep increasing rate until inflation is at two percent. These are the same sort of people who when driving and see a brick wall ahead, will accelerate as fast as possible to get them to the brick wall faster. Momentum is a big deal in economics, and when inflation has almost halved in the last 10 months and all key indicators are showing that inflation will continue gradually reducing from here, you don't need to press the accelerator for it to get to two percent because the rate of inflation is now equal to the Fed rate.

But the FED still wants to keep increasing rates because the speed at which rates increase is a bigger problem than the absolute level to which those interest rates go. If The Fed started doing those increases early. Inflation probably wouldn't take hold like it has done, and if instead of continuing increases like they are doing right now, I probably will do again next week. If instead they paused the increases to see maybe what happens with the economy, see how inflation reacts.

It would allow for a much more gradual transition from zero percent rates to higher interest rates, which is where the problem sits. It would mean the payment shock for people remortgaging for their credit would be much lower. The payment shot for companies refinancing credit would be much lower. It would mean inflation can come down without the express need for the economy to crash.

And a lot of people will say, well, during power is an expert. All of these other guys, there's such economic experts you need to go on. YouTube What did you know? Those guys know way better than you do. Well, those guys are exactly the same guys who come completely missed inflation in 2021 after completely up by printing money that was completely unnecessary in the two years before that.

in this interview, Jerome Powell Said that the only way to stop inflation is to crash the economy. No. Jerome No, The reason this is now the way it is is because you up, not because of inflation or somebody else. You can't just go blaming people.

It is because you printed money like Noi tomorrow first, then refused to act when inflation starts at increasing, second and now even after you up twice instead of taking the database approach instead of looking at the numbers and pausing increases when you don't have to be making them, the FED increased rates in March and will probably increase them again next week, all because they want to save face instead of admitting that they got it badly wrong. So you up twice, but you now have a chance to fix it. But instead you decide to go and up for the third time and risk the economy and risk people's jobs even though it is not necessary. I Know it's very cushy living a life where you can't even remember what your salary is in a recent interview.

But here is a thought: Crashing the economy only because you up and because of your political Ambitions is pathetic. You might think that unemployment is data printed on a piece of paper, but you know what? It's actual people losing actual jobs. It's actual families right across. America America Losing their ability to put food on the table.

It's actual families losing their homes because they can't afford the monthly payments. It's children going without. It's real people suffering from the stress of not having money to pay for the electricity bill. I Know it's very difficult to understand when you are a complete living in an ivory Tower and have zero regard for this sort of thing.

Zero regard for people and don't care. but maybe just maybe you Jerome along with your Fomc buddies can get your heads out of your asses and look at the data. I Know it's incredible, but just look at the numbers. Stop being degenerate and try to actually think instead of writing speeches for the next.

Banker Black Tie event or speaking to fake Ukrainian presence. Maybe try to learn what due diligence looks like so that you don't look like a complete imbecile talking to Russian pranksters. It's not hard. it really is not hard.

but it does involve a giving a clearly the opportunity to play politics and speak to Zelenski completely clouded your judgment so much that you couldn't possibly think that. it's weird that the President of Ukraine out of the blue wants to speak to the Chairman of the FED of all people. So here we are: Oil prices down gas prices down steel prices down aluminum prices down NG Costs are coming down. Food prices are coming down, Rent prices are coming down.

House price inflation is that line. New current news Prices are coming down. So what is the Fed going to do next week On the back of all of this data? That's right. Jack the rates again for no reason whatsoever.

and If the Fed crashes the economy Me by up for the third time in a row. Do you think Jordan Powell is going to be in an orange jumpsuit in court judged by a panel of his peers? Or will he instead get a big fat luxurious retirement off whatever interest that he is promoting instead of doing his job.