Here we are again, gathered at the altar of the Federal Reserve to witness the latest iteration of the 'Soft Landing' fairy tale. Jerome Powell, a man who possesses the charisma of a damp piece of drywall and the foresight of a blindfolded weatherman in a hurricane, is preparing to cut interest rates. Why? Because the bondholders—those spreadsheet-wielding ghouls who inhabit the windowless sub-levels of Wall Street—are getting 'jumpy.' It is truly a marvel of modern society that the entire global economy rests on the fragile emotional stability of a few thousand rent-seekers who haven’t seen sunlight since the Lehman collapse. These people aren’t worried about the cost of eggs; they are worried that their precious yields are being eroded by the very inflation they helped manufacture through a decade of cheap-money addiction.

The Fed’s current predicament is what happens when you try to perform surgery with a sledgehammer and then wonder why the patient is leaking fluids. For years, we were told inflation was 'transitory,' a charming little lie that Powell whispered to the markets like a parent telling a toddler that the family dog went to live on a farm. Now that the ghost of inflation has refused to leave the room, the Fed is attempting a pivot that is about as graceful as a giraffe on ice. They want to lower rates to stave off a recession, but they are terrified that doing so will reignite the inflationary fire that is currently charring the edges of the average American’s dignity. It is a masterclass in bureaucratic paralysis, performed by people who think a 'tricky circumstance' is just another word for their own incompetence.

On the Left, we have the performative outrage of the 'equitable growth' crowd, who demand lower rates because high interest makes it harder for the working class to buy a starter home—ignoring, of course, that the previous decade of near-zero rates is exactly what turned the housing market into a speculative playground for private equity vampires. On the Right, we have the moronic caterwauling of the 'sound money' advocates, who scream about the national debt while simultaneously foaming at the mouth for tax cuts that ensure the deficit continues its vertical ascent into the stratosphere. Neither side actually wants a stable economy; they want a printing press that only services their specific brand of delusion. The Democrats want to subsidize the misery; the Republicans want to deregulate the theft. And in the middle stands Powell, adjusting the thermostat in a house that is already fully engulfed in flames.

The bondholders’ jumpiness is particularly hilarious if you have a dark enough sense of humor. These are the people who demand the Fed protect the value of their money while simultaneously begging for the very rate cuts that debase it. They are terrified of a 'higher for longer' scenario because it means they actually have to evaluate risk rather than just riding the tide of liquidity. The '2% inflation target' is another piece of theological fiction. Why 2%? Because it sounds official. It has no basis in scientific reality; it is simply the number the wizards settled on to keep the plebeians from revolting while the elites slowly boil the frog. If inflation hits 3%, the world ends; if it’s 2%, we’re told to celebrate the genius of our technocratic overlords. It’s a shell game where the shells are made of gold-plated lead and the dealer is a man who can’t define what a 'recession' is until we’ve been in one for six months.

We are witnessing the final gasps of the myth of the 'independent' central bank. The Fed is not independent; it is a hostage to the markets it created. If Powell doesn't cut, the bondholders throw a tantrum and the stock market sheds a few trillion dollars of imaginary wealth. If he does cut, the cost of living remains a crushing weight on anyone who doesn't own a yacht. It is a beautiful, symmetrical disaster. We have built an entire civilization on the idea that we can manipulate the price of time—which is all an interest rate really is—and now we are surprised that time is running out. The bondholders aren’t jumpy because of the economy; they’re jumpy because they’re starting to realize that the man at the controls has no idea where the brakes are. And honestly, why should he? In a world this stupid, the only logical move is to keep flying until the fuel runs out and we all return to the dirt from which these financial ghouls originally crawled.