Virtually the entire economy is predicated on cheap money. Upending that norm means major changes in lifestyle for most of the population. I don't just mean doing more with less. I mean that a good portion of white collar workers will be diverted into blue collar work if they are lucky: a lot of it characterized by menial pay and bad working conditions.

It is real weird to see the Fed suggesting rate cuts with no recession or core financial stress being immediately apparent. Normally the Fed doesn't really cut rates as some kind of christmas present to the economy.

I have my doubts they'll actually do that and I suspect that Powell was just "jawboning" because they're trying to engineer a soft landing through talk.

The fact that they're even talking about cutting rates now means that the cheap money era is not over and the they're feeling political pressure to cut rates. If we do hit a recession you can bet that they'll slash rates to zero again. They have never once stated any kind of commitment to higher rates and I don't understand how people on the internet read any level of hope into the idea that their viewpoint has changed in any fundamental way.