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20190619 - Federal reserve chairman Powell’s speech

https://youtu.be/vuVtXgnq21E

Federal Reserve’s two pronged mission

- Maximum employment
- Price stability at 2% inflation

Indicators utilized to proxy inflation

- Unemployment levels
- wage levels
- consumption levels
- Agriculture
- manufacturing
- Business investments
- trade levels

Departments overview

US treasury and Federal Reserve are non-political entities

- Government
- US treasury - controls exchange rates
- Federal reserve focus on domestic concerns only

Observations

- will not act on sentiment driven from cross currents like Trade war and China’s deleveraging
- will wait to see more of how trends pan out before acting
- most countries find it challenging to sustain a 2% inflation rate
- wage level increases has remained subdued despite increase demand for labor
- balance sheets of banks are well stress tested
- balance sheets of non-banks like mutual funds are not well tested