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March 20, 2025 13 mins

The market makes huge gains as the Fed chooses to hold rates steady.  We asked economist and money wiz David Bahnsen what it all means.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Previously on your Morning show with Michael Del Joano.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
People pretty much, you know, are in a matrix over politics,
and in other words, you have one side that lives
in their bubble, one side lives in their bubble. It's
us versus them, and of course it's ridiculous. It's like
sitting on a plane rooting against the pilot. But when
it comes to the economy, I think there's a disconnect
and a desperate need for interpretation, focus and understanding. So

(00:27):
whenever we have these kinds of things, I'm so grateful
that we got David Bonson from the Bonson Financial Group.
He also presides over a Dividend Cafe, which is a
weekly blog if you will, and then he's here with
us every Thursday. So because we want to get beyond
the politics of this and really understand the economy and
understand how it's going to impact us us all. So,

(00:49):
the left narrative right now is that Donald Trump inherited
a great economy from Joe Biden and he's doing nothing
but trash it. So we bring David On to kind
of understand really was it a great economy? Is it
really being trashed? What's real and what's political? Narrative David,
good morning.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Good morning, Michael. Good to be with you as always.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yes, all right, So what do you make of, first,
the Fed's move to hold rate steady.

Speaker 4 (01:15):
Well, there was a one hundred percent chance coming into
the meeting that that's what they were going to do.
The futures market prices these things in ahead of time,
and the Fed more or less has told us for
a month or two that there wasn't going to be
any change this meeting, so that was no surprise. They
did reduce their level of quantitative tightening, which is a
fancy term for the way that they are affecting bank reserves.

(01:39):
They have a huge balance sheet of bonds that the
Fed has bought. It's one of the tools they use
in monetary policy, and they've been reducing it by about
twenty five billion a month. They're now going to reduce
it by five billion a month.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
So that's the Fed.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
It's a backdoor way of cutting rates without cutting rates,
of easing monetary policy a little bit, but nothing dramatic
and no big surprises.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
So we have quantitative easing quantitative tightening. I've never really
caught that before. How does that affect us? The buyers
to borrow the consumer.

Speaker 4 (02:17):
It's one of the biggest things that has happened since
the financial crisis. Japan had done it for years. But
when you get your interest rate to zero, how do
you ease more? How do you make things easier for
borrows when the interest rate is already at zero. So
Japan came up with this idea where the central bank

(02:38):
of the country would buy treasury bonds in Japan's case,
you know Japanese bonds. But our set, our fad began
buying treasure bonds from banks, but they were doing it.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
With money that didn't exist.

Speaker 4 (02:55):
So they would credit the bank dollars and the bank
would give the bond that they really had bought to
the FED. And in a way, it was for the
FED to put more money in bank reserves with money
that didn't exist. But it was not at all inflationary
because the money just stays on the bank's excess reserves.

(03:19):
So it provides liquidity in the financial system, but it
doesn't circulate into the economy. And so it's a way
of bringing interest rates down when you already have your
short term rate at zero. And I know some of
the stuff gets wonky and complicated, but You know, the
FED had about five or six hundred billion dollars of
bonds before the financial crisis. It was a very very

(03:40):
small percentage of total national debt. They now own about
eighteen or nineteen percent of the total national debt. Now
in Japan they owned well over fifty percent of it.
The central bank is the major buyer. But we ended
up buying about four trillion dollars after the financial crisis.
Then they started getting it down a little bit before COVID.

(04:03):
They ended up reducing by about five hundred billion, and
then COVID came and they.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Added five trillion more.

Speaker 4 (04:10):
So at one pointed the Fed's balance, she got up
to almost nine trillion dollars, and they have since reduced
it by over two trillion, which I think is very good.
But they've not even gotten it close to back to
what it was after I mean, excuse me, before COVID,
let alone before financial crisis.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
We will never ever ever get it back to where
it was before the financial crisis.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, some things never get back to normal, all right.
So yesterday and the media seems fascinated with us, the FED,
and as you mentioned, one hundred percent chance they were
going to do it but the way the media presents
it is shockingly they hold raid steady, and the market
seemed to love it, and the market rose. You want
to connect those dots if they're at all related, it's
it's just so stupid.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
I can barely handle it well, but I it up
for it. But no, there was nobody's surprise.

Speaker 4 (04:59):
The market was responding because the Fed held rates steady.
Markets are never responding to the current event. They're always
responding to the future event. And the more people understand this,
the more qualified they will be than media prognosticators. Markets
are what are called discounting mechanisms. They're pricing in today

(05:20):
where they believe about the future. So the only thing
that moves markets when the Fed makes an announcement that
is one thousand percent already known and priced before the.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Fed makes it.

Speaker 4 (05:30):
The only thing markets are doing is responding to what
he says about the future. And because Pale had a
tone that was very clear that they do intend to
continue cutting rates this year, markets were very very obvious
in the tone, the language, et cetera, that the FED
will be cutting two to three more times this year.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
And I think that the market also liked that.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
Basically, pal winked and nodded about the tariffs that, yes,
the tariff threat will be inflationary, but we're going to
be willing to pretend that it's not and stay on
our course of cutting rates.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
David Boson is our money, was an economist joining us.
One thing that might be real, real enough to ask
the question and mean it. The uncertainty of the issue
of the tariffs. If it's negotiation and temporary, that's one thing.
If it's a permanent destination, that's another. And I don't
know if the market knows how to read those tea

(06:28):
leaves at all.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
Well, it certainly doesn't. I am in Washington, d C.
Right now.

Speaker 4 (06:34):
I spent half of my day yesterday and meetings at
the Treasury Department, and I am not totally convinced that
the administration knows.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
Exactly what the goals may be.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
And there is a situation in which the Commerce Department
is driving a lot of the planning for this April
second announcement of what the reciprocal tariffs will be.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
And I came away yesterday feeling.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
That I really wish it was the Treasury Department driving
the ship, not Commerce.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
But I'll by the way, explain, explain what you mean
by that, by the way, because that's fascinating.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Well.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
Secretary Howard Nick is the Secretary of the Chamber, excuse me,
of the Commerce Department. Scott Besson is theres the Treasury Department.
And I believe the Secretary Beston understands the dangers of
uncertainty and financial markets and the way in which these
things can become self fulfilling prophecies, where you do economic

(07:32):
damage by not giving clear signals to economic actors as
to what you're doing. And I don't know that I
believe our Commerce Secretary understands that or cares about it.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
I think that there is a prize put on chaos.

Speaker 4 (07:47):
There's sort of this view that this is helping us
to be so chaotic, it's keeping everyone on their toes,
and that kind of mentality plays well on Twitter. It
might even play well in a campaign.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
It definitely plays.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
We play well on Wall Street. Uncertainty is the one
thing that always well.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
It doesn't play well on Main Street either either, and
that's the point.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
That's the point.

Speaker 4 (08:10):
The Secretary Beston understands that if all we were doing
is oh boy, these stock market speculators don't know what
to do. Nobody would care. Probably you could argue nobody
should care. But see that's not really the point. It's
not Wall Street, it's the real economy, is it wall Street?
When we're talking about a small business trying to decide
if they need to invest in new inventory or a

(08:30):
new plant, or invest in a new factory, what their
order flow is going to be, what their industrial production. See,
there's so much uncertainty on Main Street that small business,
mid sized business. I I think that one of the
things I hope will change by the time I die
is the idea that Wall Street is a euphemism for

(08:50):
greedy money people that don't matter, and the main Street
is where the real stuff happens. You know, all Wall
Street is doing is making capital available to main Street,
right and advising and trading and and and you know,
constructing the capital formation that is going to be needed.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
In real life business.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
So that dichotomy is really a kind of Marxian notion.
And I get why politicians say it. I get why
Bernie Sanders says it, and I even get it why
the populist right will.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
Say it sometimes.

Speaker 4 (09:19):
But when you're making policy, it would be helpful to
not I guess that's where I'm saying Secretary Best in
the Treasure department. I think they realize what's happening in
our financial markets matters to main Street, and I'm not
sure that some of.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
The others understand that.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Because if you're running a business, even bad news, bad
things are certain and you can prepare and you can
lead accordingly and act accordingly. Uncertainty just freezes you, and
freezing is never a good thing. Not of growth is
the goal. Closing moments with David bonson bonds and Financial
Group our money was this whole left narrative that the

(09:53):
president inherited. I love how they like to view the
economy in terms of presidential terms. I don't think that's
how the economy works. They happen to just reside while
the economy is happening during those But this notion that
the economy was great from Joe Biden handed off to
Donald Trump and now he's trashing it. Would you even

(10:13):
measure it that way, nor would you come to that conclusion?

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Yeah, So the reason I.

Speaker 4 (10:18):
Wouldn't come to that conclusion is because I wouldn't measure
it that way. And so I am stuck with making
everybody upset here, but I'm never going to lie to you,
and I'm never going to lie to our listeners. Of course,
a lot of the economy was pretty good a few
months ago. If you define an economy as how our
wages doing, they're going higher.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
People are making more money.

Speaker 4 (10:37):
How our jobs doing most people most who want a
job have one that's pretty good. And how our corporate
profits going. Our company is making more money. All three
of those things were going higher. The negative parts are
well documented because of a big bird flu outbreak. Aid
prices were higher because of years and years and years
of bad policy, but we're exacerbated in more recent times.

(11:00):
Housing prices were way too high, which drove inflation higher.
There were negatives, but a lot of them were secular, structural,
long term. You know this notion that the economy is
great and now Trump's come in and tinked it.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
The problem with it.

Speaker 4 (11:18):
Is it's based on a premise of before that's political.
That goes into a conclusion now that's political, instead of just.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
Saying, you know what, there were good and bad.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
Things before a politically, and there are good and bad
things now a politically. But what I'd like to know
is the people on the left that are critiquing the
Trump economy. See, I'm on the right, and I'll critique
the Trump economy. First thing I'll say is it's not
the Trump economy because the president doesn't own the economy.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
This isn't an imperialist state. But second of all, on.

Speaker 4 (11:48):
His policy will they say the tax cuts and deregulation
and energy independence are good, because I'll say it.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
I'd like them to say it.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
But then I will say the part they're saying that,
I think tariffs are bad, and I think uncertainty is bad,
and I think.

Speaker 3 (12:02):
Chaos is bad. So I guess what I'm trying to
get at.

Speaker 4 (12:06):
As many on the right are willing to call balls
and strikes, there are good and bad policy things that
President Trump is doing and will have to own.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
And if we do end up having a recession, and if.

Speaker 4 (12:17):
It is largely attributable to uncertainty, chaos, tariffs, then he
will own it politically and otherwise. But I guess my
problem is those that want to put one hundred percent
of blame in one camp and one hundred percent.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
Of credit in another. It destroys credibility.

Speaker 4 (12:35):
And I feel qualified to point this out in the
left because I try very hard, Michael, not to do
it as a guy on the right.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
I didn't do it to Biden.

Speaker 4 (12:43):
Will there be a bad jobs report and my friend's
conservative friends, I'm.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
On Fox, and we'd be in the green room and
guys that.

Speaker 4 (12:49):
Start going, oh, Biden, look at this bad jobs report.

Speaker 3 (12:52):
I guess the weirdest instinct I've ever heard.

Speaker 4 (12:55):
You know, like, if your favorite college basketball team wins
this week, are you going to say, see, because Trump's president,
my team won, or you know, when Biden's president, my
team lost, it's Biden's fault.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
That's an irrational, ridiculous way to think.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
It's even more irrational when it comes to the economy,
when it comes to three hundred and thirty million Americans.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
Acting policy is real. But this politicization staff drives me crazy.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Miss a little, miss a lot, miss a lot, and
will miss you. It's Your Morning Show with Michael del Churno.
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