Understanding the Fed: What Really Drives Interest Rates

Loan Officer Freedom

Carl White

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5 • 743 Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to Loan Officer Freedom, the #1 podcast in the country for loan officers, hosted by Carl White.

In this episode, your host, Carl White, is joined by industry leader Owen Lee to unravel the mystery behind the Federal Reserve, interest rate changes, and how those decisions are really made.

You’ll learn what the Fed’s dual mandate means (hint: it’s more than just “raise or lower rates”) and why no single person—including the Fed Chair—holds the power most people think they do.

Owen breaks down the Fed’s voting process, how the mechanics of interest rates work like fuel in the economic engine, and why inflation targets aren’t as simple as they sound.

You’ll also hear Carl’s take on why top producers don’t base their business success on what the Fed does—and how smart marketing trumps rate watching.

If you’ve ever been confused about the connection between Fed meetings and mortgage rates, this is the clarity-packed episode you’ve been waiting for.

Schedule a one-on-one free coaching call, click here or visit LoanOfficerStrategyCall.com.

Transcript

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0:00.0	All right.
0:07.8	If you've ever wanted to know exactly what is the Federal Reserve and what, when they decrease rates, who's actually making that decision?
0:19.2	You're on the right episode.
0:21.9	So, and we're not going to be,
0:28.9	we're not going to be talking about the individual, uh, as of this recording, uh, Jerome Powell.
0:32.5	So we're not going to be talking about the individual, because this is not a political podcast.
0:55.9	But, uh, so, and I'm speaking with Owen Lee here. So Owen, this comes up a lot. And, and, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to risk showing my ignorance on this topic. I'm a marketing guy, right? So I've always been a marketing guy, and that's how I did my focus. And the actual, you know, like graphs and bars and how do we get to this rate? Well, that's, you're the ex-'s you're the ex-best one of the reasons why we get along so well is I tend to have a knack at marketing and you
1:00.6	and you have a knack of a marketing also but in addition to that you have a large knowledge base
1:06.4	in and everything rates kind of thing so um so we're doing this recording, and I'm going to, I almost
1:15.7	never do this, but I'm going to timestamp this one. So as we're doing the recording, it's July 24th of
1:22.6	2025. So July 24th of 2025. And actually, it's 9.30 in the morning.
1:28.0	I better time stepping to that.
1:30.2	Something may happen and something may not.
1:32.6	But so right now, you know, on the political sphere, the Federal Reserve chairman is a little bit of a hot seat or maybe getting picked on, you know, dependent upon how you want to view it, right?
1:45.7	He's in the frying pan, that's for sure.
1:48.0	Yeah.
1:48.3	So, so, so I don't want to talk about that, but I want to talk about the position.
1:54.4	So what authority, whoever the Fed chair is, whoever he or she is, what, like, what power do they actually have
2:06.9	and is what rates are doing in America, which is incredibly powerful position, frankly, it's
2:15.6	probably the, I would think, one of the leading, one of the leading indicators of the
2:21.7	economy as a whole. Surely this one person doesn't have all the power to dictate our economy.
2:29.6	Like, like, we're, like, how does all that work? Correct.
	...

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