This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, March 27th, 2018.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Federal Reserve's new aggressiveness under J. Powell means more rate increases.

Tate Lacey, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, describes what that means for monetary

policy going forward and what the Fed should be focused on in the near and long term.

So we saw Jay Powell conduct his first press conference.

As you point out, we've seen him in testimony on the hill prior to this, but this was the first chance for the press to ask questions about that policy decision.

The Fed did indeed raise interest rates, there are two administered rates.

But that was largely expected.

Market prices had essentially fully priced that in.

So that was a continuation of what's often called the Yellen plan, this sort of very carefully

communicated normalization plan that they created throughout her tenure.

So Powell has yet to really set himself apart policy-wise. He struck a slightly

more bullish tone on the economy and that's because some economic data has come in indicating

that an expansion of little increased expansion could be on the horizon

But in in actuality most of where he deviated from his predecessor was stylistically rather than policy-wise.

So the policy looks to be the same.

Fed projections still indicate two more rates hikes this year,

though they inched up closer to four there are some market odds indicating

that a total three and a total four are now roughly equivalent prediction wise but

the policy was was largely expected where he where he really changed was he gave

short often blunter answers than did his predecessor and mostly that's from his

...