In this episode of “Fed Watch,” the hosts listened and reacted to several clips from the Jerome Powell “60 Minutes” interview.
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In this episode of Bitcoin Magazine’s “Fed Watch” podcast, hosts Christian Keroles and Ansel Lindner listened and reacted to several clips from the Jerome Powell “60 Minutes” interview. All audio is used under fair use and they added their commentary to it. You can get the full interview here and the YouTube playlist of clips here.
Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, appeared on “60 Minutes” this week. The interview seemed to be a public relations attempt by the Fed. It fell one year after the Corona Crash of 2020.
Lindner and Keroles took three clips and broke them down in unapologetic fashion. The first clip is amazing because Powell said that the Fed sees the same persistent issues today which were present back during the Great Financial Crisis (GFC), and if they keep coming up they might as well fix them. This comment got the hosts’ blood boiling. It was not as if they did not try their best to fix it back after the GFC. What makes them think they’ll be able to fix it this time?
The second clip they tackled is one where Powell addressed the U.S.’s unsustainable debt. He drew a distinction between an unsustainable “path” and an unsustainable “level” by saying the U.S. is on an unsustainable path, but is currently not at an unsustainable level of debt. He’s really splitting hairs because the path has not changed for 40 years. There’s one way out of the debt and that is default.
The last clip they looked at was about the digital dollar. They feel this was a topic they must cover on “Fed Watch” because it is a very large topic when people discuss the future direction of central banking in regards to central bank digital currencies (CBDC). Powell’s comments here are no surprise, pouring cold water on the idea of digital dollar. The Fed has no intention of being first in the CBDC race and Powell offered a skeptical approach that is missing from many other central banks.
The last few minutes of this episode consisted of a discussion on the Coinbase direct offering happening today and a whirlwind macro summary. Overall, this was a very fun and informative episode once again from “Fed Watch.”
