Because it’s not hot enough up here, I went down to St. George last week to see my parents for the 4th of July.  It was a very welcome break, even if I did hear the same stories from Mom & Dad over and over.

You may be thinking the same thing about my messages; it’s the same thing over and over.  Which is why I didn’t think it would be a big deal to take a break for a week :).  I do try to make this as interesting as possible, but at $27.63 trillion dollars, the world’s largest economy doesn’t move very fast. So repeatedly blathering on and on about the same monthly stats and the same Fed rhetoric can be about as exciting as betting on a turtle race.

Jerome Powell testified on Capital Hill this morning, warning that lowering interest rates too little or too late would put the economy and the labor market at risk, while cutting rates too soon or too much would stall or even reverse the disinflationary process.  No duh, Jerome. But I guess his audience was a roomful of elected officials who delight in redundancy and get paid to be there and not necessarily to fix anything. No blame, just a candid observation.