Excerpt
Excerpt
October 4, 2024, Audio: "We have hit a hinge moment in the economy. For the past few years, there has been one problem on policymakers’ minds: inflation. But in mid-September, the Federal Reserve called an end to that era when it cut interest rates by half a percentage point. Inflation, it was saying, is no longer the problem. It has come down from around 9 percent annually to around 2.5 percent. But unemployment is creeping up again. There are some signs of economic stress. Having spent the past year cooling the economy down, the Fed now feels it’s both safe and necessary to heat it back up, at least a bit."