Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Thursday, December 19th, and today we are talking about the latest Fed meeting.

Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it,

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slash breakdown pod. All right, friends, how's it going? First of all,

apologies for missing the show yesterday. I was completely taken out by illness. You can probably

still hear it. I think I'm on the recovery path, but obviously we can't miss more than one day.

And given that it was Fed meeting day, it seemed like a good time to come back. So the TLDR is that

the Federal Reserve cut rates at yesterday's FOMC meeting,

but signaled a reluctance to continue the cutting cycle into the new year. The quarterly

statement of economic projections or dot plot now shows only two rate cuts next year, down from

four in September's CEP, one Fed official marked down zero rate cuts in 2025, and three

officials expected only a single cut. The message was widespread uncertainty that zero rate cuts in 2025, and three officials expected only a single

cut. The message was widespread uncertainty that further rate cuts are justified by current economic

conditions. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said, with today's action, we have lowered our policy

rate by a full percentage point from its peak, and our policy stance is now significantly

less restrictive. We can therefore be more cautious as we consider further adjustments

to our policy rate. Rates are still viewed as restrictive, but there isn't any urgency,

then, to loosen policy any further. Walking through the economic projections, Powell noted

that the labor market has now cooled to below levels from 2019. Still, he believes the slowdown

...