Quick warning at the top, in an effort to make monetary policy a little more exciting, our

guest today uses some salty language.

Yesterday and today, just a few blocks from the White House, a group of 12 economists from

around the country are meeting privately.

The same way they do every few weeks.

This federal open market committee is like a panel of doctors, monitoring the country's vital signs.

And those vital signs, they're not looking so great.

I think it's more like the Fed was a doctor and it's like, oh, yeah, you go to physical

therapy, three months, you'll be better. You'll totally be back to running marathons or whatever. This is Slate's Jordan Weissman. And then like the patient after three months of physical therapy is like, no, my knee still hurts. Like, I still can't, I think something's wrong. And the doctor is like, three more months of physical therapy. You'll be fine.

You'll be back on the road.

And then it's like three months after.

It's like, no, no, it's getting worse.

Still's not great.

What Jordan's saying here is that the economy has been looking sort of ragged for a while now.

The question is what the Fed's going to do about it.

Later today, they'll take a vote and decide whether to prescribe the one medicine they've got, lowering the interest rates.

It's something the Fed hasn't recommended in a decade. Usually the Federal Reserve cuts

interest rates because either the economy is spiraling into oblivion or because they see

some weakness. And it's ostensibly the latter right now. Personally, I think that there's a bigger

narrative here that I sort of shorthand as the Fed realizes it done fucked up.

This is sort of a big admission in a way that by the Fed, that it has not been managing the economy very well and that it has not managed to reach its goals.

Translation, Jerome Powell, my bad.

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