How The Federal Reserve is Costing You Millions of Dollars

Imagine having a crystal ball that gives you insights into the future of the economy, your savings and your investments.

That's the power of understanding the central bank decisions. And in today's video, we're going to.

Dive into the seemingly complex world of.

Central banks and I'll show you exactly why. Their moves are not just news headlines.

They'Re the keys to unlocking your financial potential. Now, whether you're saving for retirement, paying.

For debts or making investments, whether it's.

In real estate, financial markets, or even.

Things like cryptocurrency, or even just your.

Own business, these decisions at the central.

Bank may have ripple effects across every.

Aspect of your wealth, directly and indirectly. So buckle up and get ready to.

Harness the knowledge that could transform your approach to money and set you on.

A path to greater financial freedom.

Now, just as a disclaimer, none of.

This information that I'm sharing for you is meant to be any forms of financial advice.

So please make sure to subscribe. Speak to your financial advisor who has.

Better understanding of your specific situation.

So first, don't get left behind. When you ignore central bank's decisions, it's like sailing without a compass. You risk being blindsided by market changes.

Economic shifts that can erode your wealth.

So take control of your financial destiny.

By understanding these crucial economic drivers.

And don't let inaction be the reason.

You miss out on opportunities that fail to protect your hard earned money.

And when you're not in tune with the central bank's policies, your savings and investments can suffer high inflation, rising interest.

Rates can diminish your purchasing power and investment returns.

So stay informed and adapt your strategies to your wealth approach and safeguard it.

Against these potential losses.

And the road to financial security is paved with knowledge and foresight. Central bank decisions can either be a.

Headwind or a tailwind to your financial plans.

And so by staying informed, you can align your financial strategies to navigate through.

Economic turbulence and protect your future prosperity.

So don't let ignorance cost you your.

Financial peace of mind.

Because these periodic announcements, which are roughly about an hour over the year, and your lack of response to these actions could be the difference where you could be losing thousands of dollars in your wealth and you may end up having to spend thousands of hours on the tail end working up to make up for. So as you are on your journey.

To building wealth or your wealth preservation.

Journey, there's an understanding and acceptance that there are likely many factors that you.

Don'T have any control over yet will.

Impact positively or negatively your wealth warehouse. While there is an overabundance of information and opinions that are shared out there. The toughest part is actually knowing which source of information you want to include as part of your repertoire. And when you don't have a process in place for evaluating information as it relates to your wealth, you'll get emotionally pulled into following opinions that suit your emotional state at that moment. And you're going to be exposed to following those headlines. And then you may resort to making.

Emotional decisions that are not in your best interest.

So the key is to understand specific information that applies to you that can have an important impact to your warehouse of wealth, short term, long term, medium term, long term, and also how it impacts. So let's do a level reset a component to your wealth of warehouse. It's important to get to the source of what you're building your wealth with.

And where you're storing your warehouse of wealth.

And so let's now look at why the announcements are so important. The system of money that we're all used to using is fiat currency, which is created and centralized in the World bank and the bank of International Settlement. They're physically located in Switzerland. So as long as fiat currency is legal tender, your local currency is what you would use to transact with. Now, one thing to recognize as Canadians, we work and use Canadian dollars, which.

Is centrally controlled by the bank of Canada.

And in the U.S. u.S. Citizens are.

Following and using the system that is.

Created by the Federal Reserve going back to Canada. The bank of Canada is a central bank that is responsible for setting monetary policy and regulating the financial system in Canada. Christia Freeland, current Deputy Prime Minister of.

Canada and the Minister of Finance.

And as the Minister of Finance, Christopher.

Freeland plays a very big role in.

Setting the overall direction of the bank.

Of Canada's monetary policy.

Despite what people may hear or get told that the government has no influence over the bank of Canada, understandably and in substance, a Minister of Finance, he does play a very important role in.

Setting the direction of the bank of Canada's monetary policy.

So the central bank such as the Federal Reserve in the United States or.

The bank of Canada, play a critical role in shaping the economic landscape.

Their decisions can have very big impacts on inflation, interest rates and overall economic growth, all of which directly affect individuals like yours ability to build and maintain wealth. So when it comes to the interest rates, here's what it can impact. It can impact savings and loans. Central banks control the benchmark interest rate. They set that interest rate which influences the rates you get on saving accounts and loans from the commercial Banks and those commercial banks are where most of your money.

If you haven't actually set up the process of becoming your own banker and.

Implemented the infinite banking concept, you would be exposed and influenced by these savings accounts and loans because the interest rates is set by this centralized authority. So when interest rates are low, savings yields less. But borrowing is also cheaper, which can be a good thing for taking out mortgage loans or business loans now. Conversely, when rates are high, such as where a lot of opinions are right now, you earn more on savings. But when you are in a loan, borrowing costs actually increase. The second thing where interest rates impact is investments. Interest rates affect the stock market and bond prices. So low rates often lead to higher stock valuations, while higher rates can cause stocks to fall. So bonds actually move inversely to rates. And as rates rise, bond prices typically fall. So if the interest rates on bonds.

Go up, the bond prices go down. When the interest rates go down, the.

Bond prices go up. The last thing is because we participate. Canadians and US and other people around this world have their own individualized currency.

Which is all centralized and managed by the central banks.

All of that fiat currency has a very particular value. All of those values though are traded in relative respective to the denominated currency.

Which is the US Dollar.

All of those currencies have a value paired or pegged against that US Dollar. Higher interest rates can increase a demand for a country's currency. So if you think about the Canadian dollar, if the interest rates for the Canadian economy is higher, more demand from other countries may want to put money into that country to attract those higher interest rates if those interest rates are being offered. So the key is if the interest.

Rates is being offered, which will give.

Much more appreciation in terms of if the interest rates are higher and the demand for the currency is up, that means the value of that currency or.

The Canadian dollar is going up.

And if that's the case, local citizens who want to buy things abroad becomes a lot cheaper. However, other places, if they want to.

Buy goods and products, if you're in.

Business and the currency is a lot higher relative to their currency, as an example Japanese yen, then Japanese people who want to buy things from Canada will be a lot more expensive because the Canadian currency has gone up. The next component as it relates to monetary policy is the impact for purchasing power. Central banks aim to control inflation and high inflation and erodes the value of money and therefore reduces the purchasing power over time. There's a high inflation, the value of that money goes down. And that means you need more quantity of money to buy that particular set of goods. As a really good example right now for you, if you were to go to the grocery store and buy the same $100 worth of groceries, what you are buying today is most likely less than what you used to have bought five years ago. And deflation can actually lead to decreased.

Spending and economic stagfl, which is where.

The talking heads are often talking about.

Where the economy could lead to when it becomes basically at a standstill.

The next part is inflation can also inflate the nominal value of assets like real estate. In Canada, a lot of, especially in Toronto and Vancouver, a lot of the real estate prices were bid up and the values have gone up. But that's not exactly what the actual values of those real estate are. Things like real estate and commodities. When inflation happens, those values do get boosted up, but they're actually not really that value. This might be beneficial for asset holders, but it also can create barriers for new investors. And there's of course, Canadians listening right now. You will probably recognize that to own a home in today's kind of environment.

Is actually very, very tough because of.

The price of entry on these homes.

Is much higher than what it used.

To relative to, let's say, the income.

That you're bringing in.

The next thing is economic health. When it comes to employment, central banks often have a mandate to ensure full employment. And their policies can influence job creation and wage growth, which are crucial for consistent wealth building. So business owners, especially as you listen to these announcements, just because they talk about interest rates, it does have a direct impact. Because if your type of business depends on borrowing money for an operating line of credit or inventory purchases or payables.

And types of interest that the supplier.

May offer you if those costs go up, that means the amount of money that you bring in is maybe the same or different and but your expenses are going up and therefore that's going to impact how much you will need to be able to afford hiring another worker. So these are other implications such as employment, where monetary policy has an indirect impact on employment. And for those of you who are employees are looking for a job, these are exactly the same things where if you are hearing that we are in a higher inflation environment, that means that businesses are having a lot of challenges.

In terms of their purchasing power and.

It may be on their lower priority list to hire someone to handle, let's say, business work.

And therefore the abundance of jobs actually.

Start going down because the cost for.

Businesses have gone up related to inflation.

What I want to do is dive into more specifically the Federal Reserve, mainly because the Federal Reserve is the one responsible for for managing the monetary policy and the money system globally. Because most of the trade is happening under US Dollars, let's dive into what.

The Federal Reserve is so the Federal.

Reserve, also referred to as the Fed, is the central banking system of the.

United States and is responsible for guiding U.S. monetary policy. Economic policy announcements and public statements by.

The Federal Reserve are amongst the most highly anticipated events of the year since.

It has implications for financial markets and are widespread.

Fed is responsible for buying and selling U.S. government securities in the financial markets and setting interest rates and reserve requirements.

The Fed is by definition is dual mandated.

Now, the Federal Open Market committee, short for FOMC, consists of 12 members and seven of those members are the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System where the President of the Federal Reserve.

Bank of New York and four of.

The remaining 11 Reserve bank presidents who serve one year terms on a routine basis. Now, FOMC meetings are a time of particular volatility because any changes in Federal fund rates can affect a range of economic variables like I've mentioned earlier such as short term interest rates, foreign exchange rates, long term interest rates, employment output and prices of goods and services.

And the FOMC meets eight times a.

Year to discuss monetary policy changes, review economic and financial conditions and assess price.

Stability and employment output.

These meeting takes place every six weeks. Four of these meetings feature a summary of economic projections followed with a press conference by the Chair.

The meetings of the scheduled meetings are released three weeks after the date of the policy, so the Fed provides a wealth of data that can influence the markets. And in addition to the Fed's headlined interest rates, most wealth managers also study the post meeting press releases which highlight.

The state of economy.

Since some of the information contained in these press releases may look forward to policy changes at future meetings. The contents of this release carries a risk of catching many people off guard and it is for this reason that people pay attention to press releases, speeches.

And other public appearances by said members that occur between FOMC meetings.

And there are a number of factors.

To think about when it comes to.

Before and after FOMC meeting announcements. But with a little insight and thorough preparation, it is an event that offers.

Numerous opportunities for you and those of you who are interested in building their wealth. Here are some of the things that I just want to first state before we get this process started is none of this is meant to be any form of specific financial advice. This is particularly meant for entertainment and educational purposes only. If you have any particular questions, please make sure you speak to a specific financial advisor as it relates to your particular circumstances. So let's go into watching this announcement.

My colleagues and I remain squarely focused on our dual mandate to promote maximum employment and stable prices for the American people.

This is a common comment that it may not be what he will say all the time. This is what the central banks are generally mandated to do. And so they are just reflecting back to the public to remind them or remind you that this is what they're focused on. And whatever policy decisions that they make, it's because of for this reason there is this enemy of inflation, an enemy.

Of lack of employment. So our job is to make sure.

We'Re giving you maximum employment and managing inflation in such a way. So I just wanted to share that.

As my opinion economy has made considerable progress toward our dual mandate objectives. Inflation has eased substantially over the past year while the labor market has remained strong. And that's very good news.

He's just again reflecting back from information that he's gathered or has as a.

Report just to share that compared to where the benchmark they were measuring against.

Before, there is significant improvement.

However, if you were just to do.

A logical, intuitive test, you can actually see whether there is maximum employment being achieved and whether inflation has actually eased. I personally don't feel and have that.

Same experience, but inflation is still too high. Further progress in bringing it down is not assured and the path forward inflation.

Is still too high. So they have an objective.

I don't know how that objective is derived, which is to be at 2%.

So so long as their measurement of.

Inflation, which is CPI and basket of.

Prices of goods, if prices are too high compared to their benchmark of 2%, no matter what that means there's a continuation of what's going to happen ahead.

From what was already happening in the past.

So if you felt pain in the past, you're going to feel and continue the same level of pain going forward.

We are fully committed to returning inflation to our 2% goal. Restoring price stability is essential to achieve a sustainably strong labor market that benefits all.

And so the other part that he's.

Stating here is prices is the problem. And in order for the labor market to be proper, we've got to manage.

And bring inflation down.

Today the FOMC decided to leave our policy interest rate unchanged and to continue to reduce our securities holdings, though at a slower pace.

He already starts right off the bat to say, because everybody cares about this the most, what is the interest rates going to be.

Interest rates are going to be held the same.

And again, they are the world denominated currency. So as Canadians, even though they're in the U.S. they're kind of essentially the mothership. And from that mothership's direction, it will lead to Canada's decision.

Now, sometimes Canada comes out before FOMC.

For the US and that's actually a good way for people who are in the US to see if Canada held steady. As an example, then the US is actually a leading indicator.

You know, possibly I'm not giving any advice.

It's a good way to draw clues that the US is likely has already made the decision to keep things the same. So in this case, the US actually came first and Canada came afterwards on May 1st. So the US is holding it steady. Therefore Canada, you can also expect it to hold steady.

A restrictive stance of monetary policy has been putting downward pressure on economic activity and inflation.

Their restrictive policy meaning not granting as much credit. So getting loans were a lot more difficult and having the high interest rates because people weren't borrowing money and using credit to purchase goods and services or.

Credit cards or using their lines of credits because it was so expensive.

As an example, it brought people down to a level not to spend as much anymore. It's not like everyone has an abundance of credit limit right now to look at going more. It's not like they need to use more because they've already been tapped out. So one of the contexts that's missing.

That people may not pick up is.

What is the state of the economy of your average individual Canadian and your.

Average individual, let's say US citizen?

So you may be just like everyone else, already tapped out on your credit. That's actually one of the reasons why you're not able to spend any more. I'm pretty sure that he has an idea that people are already tapped out on their credit. And that's also why the economic activity.

Is kind of going down or stalling. And it's matching their objective or their.

Narrative of seeing a slower economic activity.

And therefore with slower economic activity, prices now go down because demand is going down.

Supply is relatively maybe the same, but.

Demand for those products may go down.

So prices of course are going to go down because businesses are going to try to stay alive and so they're.

Going to sell things at a deeper.

Discount and so price is going to go down. So these are things that they don't see at that macro level and what.

They'Re reporting and sharing with you. It's more on this level than I'm just sharing with you on just the.

Individual micro level of businesses, how they're.

Managing their day to day business and.

The risks to achieving our employment and inflation goals have moved toward better balance over the past year. However, in recent months inflation has shown a lack of further progress toward our 2% objective and we remain highly attentive to inflation risks.

So I'm very concerned about hearing that personally when they are playing around with their interest rates and what they choose.

And then he's still seeing from whatever metrics he formulates for CPI that there's still issues with inflation. And so what does that mean? That means there's more risk, at least.

From a probability standpoint that maybe interest rates could further go up. At least it's not going to go down. So that's just something to recognize. He's not prioritizing economic activity, he's prioritizing inflation.

I'll have more to say about monetary policy after briefly reviewing economic developments. Recent indicators suggest that economic activity has continued to expand at a solid pace. Although GDP growth moderated from 3.4% in the fourth quarter of last year to 1.6% in the first quarter, private domestic final purchase purchases, which excludes inventory investment, government spending and net exports and usually sends a clearer signal on underlying demand, was 3.1% in the first quarter, as strong as the second half of 2023. Consumer spending has been robust over the past several quarters, even as high interest rates have weighed on housing and equipment investment. Improving supply conditions have supported resilient demand and the strong performance of the US Economy over the past year.

The labor market remains relatively tight, but supply and demand conditions have come into better balance. Payroll job gains averaged 276,000 jobs per month in the first quarter, while the unemployment rate remains low at 3.8%. Strong job creation over the past year has been accompanied by an increase in the supply of workers, reflecting increases in participation among individuals aged 25 to 54 years and a continued strong pace of immigration.

Nominal wage growth has eased over the past year and the jobs to workers gap has narrowed, but labor demand still exceeds the supply of available workers.

He's just sharing that unemployment is not as high. There's still a strong supply of workers. For those of you who actually want to connect the dots, there has been a lot of influx of immigrants to the US and Canada. Is the quality of jobs actually going up? Don't know. Just thought I would highlight that Canada's population has jumped significantly from 33 million.

Five years ago to now above 40.

Million five years later has eased notably over the past year, but remains above our longer run goal of 2%. Total PCE prices rose 2.7% over the 12 months ending in March. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core pce prices rose 2.8%.

Here's something that if you have some clarity on the mechanics of businesses. If we were just to take something very simple and look at. If the cost of A widget is $1 initially and you were selling it.

For $2, and now because the cost that you have has gone up to 0.5, in order for you to keep up with requirements, you might raise the price to 2.5. So if the price goes up to 2.5 according to their CPI calculations of things, the CPI is going to go up again too. In order for prices to go down.

Demand has to go down for those widgets have to go down or the.

Supply of those prices have to go down.

And so how does supply of those prices go down? If the quantity of the supply goes up, that means that there's more businesses that start. It's going to be very difficult for.

That happen or more businesses have collapsed.

And the ones who had a lot of the supply are still meeting that level of demand.

So some way or shape or form the quality of the percentages and what.

He'S sharing of prices going up and manufacturing prices going up and all of.

That stuff, those are a higher level numbers that if you slice them down to the appropriate quality level, then you're.

Going to actually really see the architecture of the construct of it.

The inflation data received so far this year have been higher than expected. Although some measures of short term inflation expectations have increased in recent months, longer term inflation expectations appear to remain well anchored, as reflected in a broad range of surveys of households, businesses and forecasters, as well as measures from financial markets. The Fed's monetary policy actions are guided by our mandate to promote maximum employment and stable prices for the American people.

Notice how he repeats that again.

My colleagues and I are acutely aware that high inflation imposes significant hardship as it erodes purchasing power, especially for those least able to meet the higher costs of essentials like food, housing and transportation.

The one thing he doesn't really actually talk about is actually the level of government spending and the level of money that's being created to support that level of spending. And sometimes a lot of that spending, maybe that spending is actually required.

But going to the surface level, what is the money being spent on? If 30% or some high percentage number.

Let'S even say 50% or 60% of the amount of money the government is spending is $100, but 70% of it is to interest because they printed a whole bunch of money. The interest rate is high, so they have to pay a lot for that interest. And the 30% is actually maybe just for the programs.

Then you're like, where's the quality of that going to?

The quality of that money is going to back to the banks and to the Federal Reserve. Just thought I would show that even though spending and money is talked about here on the consumer side, it's not.

Actually talked about on the other components.

That are formed in gdp. So not just consumer spending, there's business investment, there's government spending, there's exports and imports. So those are other forms of country spending that happens based on the current ways that they measure the economy.

Strongly committed to returning inflation to our 2% objective.

The Committee decided at today's meeting to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at five and a quarter to five and a half percent and to continue the process of significantly reducing our securities holdings, though at a slower pace.

So you've already heard several times that he's mentioned that they're reducing their securities holdings in the portfolio. And for those of you who don't know, the Federal Reserve is actually a private corporation that is actually separate from the government. And what they have is securities foldings. And it is the securities holdings of the government bonds in their portfolio.

So they have bonds that as a.

Promise from the government to be paid. So when they're reducing the security holdings. So first is actually understanding the reason why they're reducing it. To reduce it is to manage the monetary supply and control inflation. So the action is consistent with their mandate. They are reducing securities holding the control inflation. Whether the action is actually correct is a different thing or is actually going to solve the problem is something to be desired. But if we're talking about the rules and mandate or the set of programs or instructions or policies that they're following.

They are for sure following exactly the policy.

Whether the policy is actually effective, that's a different question. Just to give the opposite, when the.

Central bank buys securities, it injects money.

Into the economy, which increases the money.

Supply and then it leads to inflation.

Which is what happened in 2020 when.

They issuing all of those government programs, spending loans because of lockdowns and all of those reasons. So they're just unwinding all of the.

Printing of money and securities holdings that they had in that place.

What was Quantitative easing, where the central.

Bank bought a lot of amount of securities to lower interest rates and stimulate the economy, reducing its holding.

The Fed is gradually unwinding this program.

And returning more to a normal policy stance.

And this is under the premise that it'll help control inflation and stabilize the.

Economy and promote sustainable growth in terms.

Of peak rate, you know, I think really it's the same question.

I think the data will have to answer that question for us.

And could you just follow on the path where you might not cut is that you mentioned that it would be inflation persistent. Is inflation, would that be the key data in making that decision? Or could you expand a bit more on that? Thank you.

We've set ourselves a test that we for us to begin to reduce policy restriction, we'd want to be confident that inflation is moving sustainably down to 2%. And for sure one of the things we'd be looking at is the performance of inflation. We'd also be looking at inflation expectations. We'd be looking at the whole story. But clearly incoming inflation data would be at the very heart of that, that decision.

So I really love that question. The question was if inflation is actually going down, are you going to adjust the interest rates? And then he went around very beating around the bush just to not just talk about inflation. He's like, oh, depending on how inflation is expected to be and other expectations. And he just kind of glossed over falling normal talking head, not really answering questions, type of style.

To what extent has the easing in financial conditions since November contributed to the re acceleration in growth? And do you now expect a period of sustained tighter financial conditions will be needed to resume the sort of disinflation the economy saw last year.

So I think it's hard to know that. I think we'll be able to look back from down the road and look back and understand it better. Let's look at growth. Really what we've seen so far this year in the first quarter is growth coming in about consistent with where it was last year. I know GDP came in lower, but you don't see an acceleration in growth. I mean the thought would be that financial conditions loosened in, in, in December and that caused an uptick in activity and that caused inflation.

Just to give some context and reference, the Federal Reserve was created in 1913. So you're telling me from 1913 with all of the abundance of technology and privileged information, you do not have a way. And especially with all of the ways that technology captures information right now and how privacy is actually not is much.

Harder you don't have a clear pulse.

Exactly on the variables on how this economic machine works and the impacts of these type of decisions and what it can make.

That's a little bit concerning to hear.

You don't really see that happening. What you see is economic activity at a level that's roughly the same as as last year. So you know what, what's causing this inflation? You know, we'll, we'll have a better sense of that over time. I don't know that there's an obvious connection there though with the easing of financial conditions.

So he has no idea what's causing inflation. Yet still, despite the rhythms of the indicators, from even I can tell you, 1980s, 1930s to 1960s has no clue.

In terms of tightening.

You're right.

I mean, rates are certainly higher now and have been for some time than they were before the December meeting. And they're higher and that's tighter financial conditions. And that's appropriate given what inflation has done in the first quarter.

You've said in the past that stronger growth wouldn't necessarily preclude rate cuts. I wonder, would continued strength in the labor market change your view about the appropriate stance of policy if it was accompanied by signs that wage growth was re accelerating?

The question here that I'm reading is what are you exactly looking for, for things to change?

So I just want to be careful that we don't target wage growth or the labor market and remember what we saw last year.

So his mandate is to target or minimize employment. Does you need to see wage growth? If wage growth goes up, costs for businesses go up. That means their revenue has to go up to cover the margin on the cost of wages. So prices have to go up. So prices go up, inflation go up.

Very strong growth, a really tight labor market, and historically fast decline in inflation. So we, and that's because we know there are, there are two forces at work here. There's the unwinding of the pandemic. Related.

I think the other question is how is inflation going to go down?

Supply side distortions and demand side distortions. And there's also monetary policy, you know, restrictive monetary policy.

So this is just another example of speak that doesn't speak to anything.

I wouldn't rule out that something like that can't continue. You know, I wouldn't give up at this point on further things happening on the supply side either because, you know, we do see that, that companies still report that there are supply side issues that they're facing. And also even when the supply side issues are Solved, it should take some time for that to affect economic activity and ultimately inflation. So I don't like to say that.

Either growth or a strong labor market in and of itself would automatically create problems on inflation because of course, it didn't do that last year. Ask about wages. We don't target wages, we target price inflation. It is one of the inputs.

What about the employment then?

The point with wages is, of course we, like everyone else, like to see high wages, but we also want to see them not eaten up by high inflation. And that's really what we're trying to do, is to cool the economy and work with what's happening on the supply side. Well, the economy probably be having wage increases move down incrementally toward levels that are more sustainable.

Having wage increases go up instead of it being before maybe $5, now it's going $1. So it's just trying to say workers need to be paid less.

You talked about needing time to gain more confidence that inflation is sustainably moving back down to 2%. It's May now. Do you have time this year to cut three times just given the calendar?

Yeah, I'm not really thinking of it that way. What we said is that we, we need to be more confident. And we've said, my colleagues and I today said we didn't see progress in the first quarter. And I've said that it appears then that it's going to take longer for us to reach that point of conference. So I don't know how long it'll take. I, you know, I can just say.

That it does a really good job again of not answering the question. He's like, that's not how I look at it. But doesn't actually explain what he's looking at or how he's looking at it.

When we get that confidence, then rate cuts will be, will be in scope. And I don't know exactly when that will be.

Are there any signs that you can look back on now, looking at the reports from January or February or March, that suggested something more worrying than just expected bumpiness.

I think at this rate, we can already see that despite the questions, I mean, they could be a lot better. Ultimately, there's no real clear indication that it's actually going to answer any questions related to it. So the key takeaways are they are not changing the interest rates. They've maintained it steady. So what does that mean for you going forward? Well, if you felt pain in the last quarter last year, expect the same pain at least. And if there were points where Things were getting worse. It's not going to get better from the economy. So you have to find something to look at and change in terms of the circumstances.

If they are not going to make.

The change, how are you going to be able to make the change to improve your circumstance?

So that was the US One because.

It was on the same day. Let's go over the Canadian Central bank update.

Okay, so just to share that there.

Wasn'T actually a video that's posted yet for the statement, but here's from the bank of Canada straight from them opening statement before the Senate Committee on Banking, Commerce and economy. So again May 1, 2024 and here's where in April they maintained that they would stay at 5%. And the same message just so you.

Can spot the pattern that from the.

US side remember they were targeting for 2% while here they expect to move closer to 2% target this year. They're just trying to reinforce the message that it's working.

Second, growth in the economy looks to be picking up.

We expect GDP growth to be solid this year and strengthen further in 2025. I'm not sure where they're getting that comment from. And then as we consider how much longer to hold a policy rate at the current level, we're looking for evidence that the recent easing in underlying inflation will be sustained. In case you just didn't notice earlier mentioned the exact same thing. It has to be sustained. But they're not actually explaining what they're looking for for what it means to be sustained, sustained for how long, what that means. So there's no clarity on that.

Each of these reports is just going.

Summary bullet points is just talking about what the observations are. So the labor and their objective is to maximize employment. So they're saying labor markets cooled from very overheated levels and the employment is growing more slowly than the working age population. Unemployment rates has gradually risen over the last year to 6.1. So they're saying compared to last year at March at 6.1%. And there are also some signs that wage pressures are beginning to ease. If there is not enough people working then they will have to increase prices. If people aren't willing to find work then they're just going to accept what's being offered. So that's one thing just to be mindful of. So they're saying the inflation CPI is 2.9%. So their reference again is to get to 2%. So they're looking specifically watching core inflation and focused on the balance between demand and supply in the economy. Inflation expectations, wage growth, corporate pricing behaviors as indicators where inflation is headed. So a little bit more information, better than what Jerome Powell provided. Continued comments that their focus is the inflation rate, not the interest rate. And they're saying this is encouraging. They're trying to write a positive spin on a message to say keep going, things will get better and we want to see this progress. Sustained. That was our first series as it relates to FOMC and the bank of Canada Central bank announcements. And please, if you haven't had a chance, make sure you subscribe so that you can get notifications on further updates. As it relates to economic policies coming from the Federal Reserve and the Central bank of Canada.