저자: Kevin · 외국인
요약 보기
트럼프 행정부가 파월 연준 의장에 대해 대배심 소환장을 발부해 형사 기소를 압박하고 있으며, 이는 금리 인하를 노린 정치적 압박이라는 주장. 연준 독립성 훼손은 1970년대식 인플레이션 재현 위험이 있다고 봄. 경기는 아직 급락하지 않았으나(GDPNow 5% 이상 등) 장단기 금리 차 축소와 금리 상승 우려가 단기 불확실성을 키운다고 분석. 1월 금리 인하는 기대하지 않는다는 입장. 영상 말미 홍보 포함.
다듬은 글
Holy smokes. I was just touring properties with builders in Utah. And as soon as I land, what do I hear? Oh my gosh. Federal Reserve grand jury indictment. Owl announcing via a video posted Sunday night that they're potentially facing criminal charges. And he's describing this is all rigged against him.
This was not on my big board. We need to break down exactly what's going on. What are prosecutors demanding? What is this set up? And what is all of this about? and what does this mean for markets? So, here's how we're going to break this down. First, we're going to talk about what a grand jury indictment is.
Then, we're going to talk about some of the history between Trump and the Federal Reserve. And then, we'll end by touching on a little bit of these renovations. First things first, you have to understand what a grand jury indictment is and like what are the practical implications for this? Like, how bad is it?
I mean, obviously when Powell posts a Sunday night video, there's obviously got to be a problem here. It can be. A grand jury indictment is really a precursor to formal charges. In other words, before a prosecutor like the Department of Justice says, "Hey, we're going to file a criminal complaint against you." In other words, we're going to bring charges against you and we're going to arraign you and we're going to arrest you.
Before we do that, we're going to collect some information. Now, some of that information gathering can be through what is often considered a fishing expedition, which is basically where you go to all the members of the Federal Reserve Board and you say, "Hey, you know what? Show me everything that's on your laptop, everything that's on your phone, all your texts, all your chats, all your emails, anything you have." And this is where oftent times we make the joke, "Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime." Now, in fairness, this is what people have also said about Donald Trump.
And now Donald Trump has the policeman hat on. So Donald Trump is sort of playing policeman going, "Huh, what can I get against these guys?" Well, what a better way than to issue a subpoena and basically request all of your documents over frankly the life of this renovation, which would mean over the last frankly about four to 5 years.
Now, this is basically saying, "Give me everything and we're going to go through everything and anything we don't like, we're going to start firing people off of the Federal Reserve Board or worse, we're just going to arrest them after they get arrested and we showcase their faces. You know, Jerome Powell in handcuffs or whatever, then we're going to fire them and go, see, they're getting arrested by the Department of Justice.
Guess we have to fire them for cause. Donald Trump needs cause to fire members of the Federal Reserve, especially Trump Powell. He has not found that cause yet, so he's going fishing for it. Attorneys don't like that word. Nobody likes a fishing expedition looking for things. Usually, subpoenas are supposed to be narrowly tail tailored to we want your emails that relate to renovations.
But oftentimes what they'll do is they'll say, "We want all of your emails." And if there's something else we don't like, then we'll file charges against that because now we've obtained them legally because you gave them to us. Hence, fishing expedition. In fact, there is a joke when it comes to grand juries.
It is a very famous quote. It says that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. Uh the reason we can indict a ham sandwich ham sandwich uh is really because a grand jury just looks at one-sided evidence and then decides whether or not to bring charges against well Jerome Powell. So frankly, a grand jury is not a trial.
It is not a court. It is a group of people who listen to a prosecutor's ideas for why charges should be brought against a person. And frankly, if a prosecutor wants an indictment, they can usually get it. So, in other words, this is bad because yes, it means we could see criminal charges and an arrest of Jerome Powell or other members of the Federal Reserve Board that Donald Trump just doesn't like because he wants lower interest rates.
Now, we'll talk about policy and market reactions in just a moment. But remember, grand juries tend to pick favorable evidence. Then, they frame things in the way that they want, and they don't really present anything that hurts their case. They're usually very vague presentations to get a grand jury to say, "Well, I don't think you got an argument." There is no defense.
There's no exculpatory evidence, which would be something that could potentially, you know, prove the innocence of the person that we're investigating. Uh, and a grand jury doesn't decide guilt. They only say, "Looks like there's enough to try and check it out." That's really all a grand jury is. It's very low bar.
Problem is, this is a distraction. It forces the Federal Reserve to take time preparing documents, responding to these inquiries. It is an intervention into the Federal Reserve. It also signals the potential that if they see an email they don't like, they're going to send the FBI to Jerome Powell's house and they're going to arrest him.
A fishing expedition grand jury uh subpoena also creates the risk of perjury. Oh, Powell, you said this over here. That's different than what's in this email. Now, that could be rigged together because as is typical in court cases, context is missing. That's why we have trials. So, people clip things together.
Use that to file charges. You file charges. You file the charges. Even if you know you're going to lose in court, you use that charge to arrest Powell and others. And then Powell has to prove his innocence in court, which could take as long as two years or longer. So in other words, you could literally arrest Powell and fire him.
Powell would have to prove his innocence over the next 2 years, but he's long out of office. Donald Trump has every, you know, the Federal Reserve the way he wants it, which is a little odd because, you know, we typically want institutions to do the right thing. Instead, when we get labor statistics that Donald Trump doesn't like, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics gets fired.
Gets fired. And wow, what a surprise. The labor numbers have been great lately. Oh, when we start getting inflation statistics we don't like, we're just going to start stimulating the economy some more by buying mortgage back securities and issuing stimulus checks to our veterans, which I'm not arguing against issuing stimulus checks to our veterans, but let's just say there are some things the president is doing that are quite inflationary.
It's also probably no surprise that the Supreme Court is slow walking Donald Trump's tariff ruling because I don't think it's going to be favorable to Trump. But if they sloww walk it, hey, it lets Trump continue to do what he wants. But all these things are really a topic for a different video. And instead, what we should really talk about is what Donald Trump wants here.
Donald Trump, as we talked about in our mastermind this weekend, and as we were exploring real estate uh in Utah this weekend for House Hack, I described that Donald Trump is the adrenaline junkie. He wants to run the economy hot. And I was specifically asked, Kevin, can we avoid a recession? And my answer was point blank, no, but we can delay it.
And Donald Trump and his cronies want nothing more than to delay the reckoning the economy faces for as long as possible. Now, of course, that's understandable. Myin has already said the quiet part out loud, which is exactly what I just said. They want to run the economy hot to delay or forestall, Myron's word, a recession.
The problem is when we scare the market into making the market realize that you can no longer trust the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You can no longer trust the fact that the SAM rule would have triggered in October had we actually collected the unemployment data. But Donald Trump essentially forced a shutdown so he could send Russ vote to go fire a bunch of people and then blame Democrats for it, which is essentially exactly what happened.
Usually you have some negotiation, some give. He didn't have that until six weeks, which is all Donald Trump needed to hide the October employment numbers when the federal uh government had massive layoffs that would have triggered the somber roll. So, like a lot of people looking this was the Schumer shutdown, Kevin.
I mean, come on. Where's your freaking hat? Oh, don't worry. I still got my hat. You know what happens when I put the hat on, right? The Schumer shutdown has caused the economy to shut down, which just happens to enable Donald Trump to do exactly what he wants because it's Democrats fault. We are now published error firing a bunch of people from federal government positions including rigging the government exactly the way we want it.
It's Democrat's fault. You know that's that's the idea. Okay. So the point is not to get pedantic here. The point is just to say this is a bullying tool. A grand jury indictment is a bullying rule or tool. The problem is you scare the market rates go up and Federal Reserve independence is questioned.
Yes. Look, we all want lower rates and we're going to talk about the renovations in a moment. But here's the thing. We do not want to repeat the 1970s. In the 1970s, we had a lack of Federal Reserve independence. Arthur Burns was a political shill and a hack who led us to a vulkaring or a double dip recession in 1980 and 199 1982.
That was because Arthur Burns sucked so much and was a political hack and did everything that the president wanted. Nobody had the balls to say, "Bro, we actually have to convince people that inflation is too high and we need to lower it." The funny thing about inflation is it's all in our heads. If we think prices are going to go up, we go shopping today and we create the very inflation we are afraid of.
That is why the Federal Reserve says we we will not stop until we get inflation back to 2%. They have to say that to make us feel like they're doing their job. It's all part of the manipulation. We're not going to get a rate cut January 28th, my birthday. Why? Because the economy, according to the Atlanta Fed real GDP, is running at over 5%.
We're running over 5%. Why would we get a rate cut? So far, the job numbers we've gotten, yeah, things are slowing down. We know that, but the economy is not falling off a cliff. S&P surveys, ISM surveys say we're not falling off a cliff. Uh the ADP labor data says we're actually rebounding slightly.
Challenger jobs report says we're rebounded slightly. Atlanta Fed real GDP is at 5.1%. Yes, the economy outside of artificial intelligence has slowed down, but we don't know if this is because we're falling off a cliff or because we're normalizing. And so, in fairness, the Fed is trying to do their best.
I disagree with what the Fed does. I think we're going into a disinflationary period. We need substantially lower rates. So, that means, ironically, I agree with Donald Trump and Myin, but I disagree in the way that they're going about it. This is pure and simple bullying and it creates a lack of confidence in economies and it doesn't really create short-term damage.
It creates long-term damage. Unfortunately, much like tariffs, we probably won't see all of the impact of the damage that's caused by this. Let's hit everybody with adrenaline shots, which in the long run always causes damage. There's always a side effect. There's a reason why when you get shot with an EpiPen, Yeah.
you stay, you survive. your throat opens up, your heart rate goes up, and you can power through whatever shock you're going through or allergic reaction you're going through. There's a reason you have to go to the hospital afterwards. It's because there are side effects that could also kill you. Anyway, so let's understand prior history a little bit.
Federal Reserve Governor Cougler abruptly resigned on August 2025 or in August 2025. She was supposedly going back to go teach at Georgetown allegedly, but had no classes on the calendar to go back to teaching. Instead, some argued that Donald Trump was about to make a case against her because her husband made some stock trades that she reversed after disclosing and I guess there were some delays or issues or whatever.
And she basically stepped down because she didn't want to get Lisa cooked. Anyway, Cougler was not a fan of Trump. She was not a Trump appointee. And Georgetown happens to be an institution that's really Trump friendly. Many of Trump are alums of Georgetown, which means there's clearly a relationship between Georgetown and the Trump administration.
And we know that Trump is going after universities and Georgetown just doesn't want to be in the reticle. They don't want the gun pointed at their face going, "We're going to cut your freaking funding if you don't somehow convince Cougler to come back." So, we know they rigged to get Cougler back. Now, in fairness, after we got C after Cougler stepped down, we got Myin.
This bastard actually replies to people on X, which is crazy to me. But I've started to like the guy. I don't know, maybe I'm being manipulated, but I will say he's not as much of a shill as I thought. I thought Kevin Hasset was a shill. I know he's a shill, frankly. Uh, I think that Kevin Walsh is a Neither of them belong at the Fed chair helm.
I think Waller is the best choice who actually has an economic brain. Or pick Myin. You know, Myin will shill for you all day long. But I also think Myron's economic theory is right and defensible. Yes, lower rates can be done because of these disinflationary forces. The Myron strategy is a much better way to go for lower rates than the Trump strategy.
We're going to arrest you and fire you, right? Because that makes it seem like Trump is being a dictator cuz he freaking is. Anyway, Lisa Cook, mind you, was beat up for doing the same thing that Donald Trump did in the '9s. Lisa Cook supposedly was allegedly taking out two primary mortgages within, you know, 6 weeks of each other.
We saw it. We went through the documents. She alleges that one of them was for a second home purchase, which is fair. We wouldn't see that on the documents, but it would align with a 10% down payment. We went through all the documents. We we made a whole video on it. But since then, Donald Trump himself has had allegations that he committed the same mortgage fraud in the '90s for having multiple primary residences.
And there's no vacation home argument because Donald Trump just pretended that didn't happen. And most media doesn't really want to slam Donald Trump too hard because they'll end up losing their media licenses and access to the White House, which none of this sets really good, you know, feelings for long-term credibility and transparency.
Even though you're we're told that Donald Trump is the most transparent president ever, just happens to only be transparent when it favors him. But again, topic for a different video. There are real long-term implications to this, right? But anyway, Lisa Cook stays. Couggler's out. We get Myron. He's shilling for 150 basis points of cuts.
Waller shilling for 100 basis points of cuts. Mind you, that's the correct move. It's just how Trump is going about it isn't good. And of course, Warsh is also shilling for cuts. So, now we need to understand, but Kevin, you know, what's going on with these renovations? Like, you know, I is is there potentially going to be some kind of like fraud there or whatever?
I would argue if they're doing a grand jury indictment, the answer to that is yeah, this is what Donald Trump wants. He'll stitch together any one-sided narrative to go arrest Powell to make it seem like Powell is a fraud. And Trump is working for the American people, but that's going to kill Federal Reserve independence, which is literally what caused the 1970s inflation.
So, long-term bad, short-term good. This is not the way to go about it. Now, what does Powell say and what's going on with their renovations? Well, here for it. Hear it for yourself. Good evening. On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas, threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June.
Mind you, threatening, that's the whole point. They are trying to get the Fed to shake in their boots and make this Sunday night video to go, "Hey, like we're getting attacked here." Because they want rate cuts. This is Trump's way of doing it. This is how Trump fights. Trump fights dirty. Some people are like, "Good, man.
Go Trump. Go Trump." But this is a messed up institution to do it with because if we self-fulfill inflation, we're going to have a whole lot bigger problems than just a little dinky, you know, initial recession. That testimony concerned in part a multi-year project to renovate historic Federal Reserve office buildings.
I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy. No one, certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve, is above the law. But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure. This new threat, brilliant statement by Powell.
He's saying, "Make sure to put in context all of the bullying that we've had." Right? Remember the bullying that we've had with Donald Trump. When you hear this, remember what Donald Trump said. Donald Trump was asked, quote, "Will you fire Powell?" What did Donald Trump says? Highly unlikely, unless there was fraud.
You know, that renovation they're doing, that's out of hand. He's been setting up to fire Powell for fraud. Russ Vote, the director of the OM, has said the Federal Reserve renovation included beehives, rooftop gardens, VIP dining rooms. You know, this is obviously all disputed, but that's the point.
They're just trying to paint the picture because they don't need to win the criminal conviction. They just need enough to arrest him. This is the start. Threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress's oversight role. The Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project.
Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public rather than following the preferences of the president. This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.
I have served at the Federal Reserve under four administrations, Republicans and Democrats alike. In every case, I have carried out my duties without political fear or favor, focused solely on our mandate of price stability and maximum employment. Public service sometimes requires standing firm in the face of threats.
I will continue to do the job the Senate confirmed me to do with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people. Thank you. Good job, Powell. Like professionally said, even if you don't like him, you got to give him credit. He's digging in. I respect that. Even if you don't like Powell, respect.
He stands up for what he thinks is right. And honestly, there are a lot of people today that unfortunately don't. And the reason is because they're worried about getting fired. We're losing a government contract. We're getting investigated by the Trump administration. Just the sad reality of unfortunately the realm that we're in.
But let's understand this. Powell is standing firm. Doesn't mean he can't get arrested. You could get arrested and the picture of this guy Powell in cuffs or somebody else at the Fed in cuffs is all you're going to need for Trump to go, "F it. I'm firing him. And he puts in a whole suite of new people at the Fed.
They might cut rates a lot. So what does this mean in the short term? Probably bad for the 10-year yield in the short term because we're increasing uncertainty. We increase inflation fears. However, near-term rates might fall because there might be an increasing bet that whoever comes in soon is going to tank short-term rates.
So what does that mean? short-term rate down, long-term rate up. If you've watched this channel, you've been subscribed to the education you have on this channel. I want you to answer this question before I say it. I'm gonna say it one more time. It's this a pop quiz. You should freaking know this. You should be screaming at your TV right now going, I know what it is, okay?
Short-term down. Oh my gosh, they're going to rig it. They're going to cut rates. Long-term up because of inflation fears. What does that do to the economy? It stretches the 102 yield curve which makes the economy more shockprone. It makes us more prone to beginning a recession. Once we hit 125 basis points, we're pretty much in it.
This is why I've always been a fan of be conservative. Donald Trump is slamming these adrenaline shots everywhere. The side effects are coming. We must be careful. Don't be bearish. You know, like I'm not trying to be bearish. I think I'm actually overall very very optimistic. I mean, we were just masterminding about the future of house hack and the spec build that we're doing, what we're doing with lending, what we're doing with tokenization.
Most of you haven't even heard about that stuff. What we're doing, it's insane what we're doing and how bullish we are on America and and technology and our AI, the AI that we sell at reinvestorhouse.com. Right? this is great quality stuff that's just growing. We're seeing the bleeding edge beta releases before you even see it.
And we're like, "Oh my gosh, how could it keep getting better?" househ house.com. But in the short term, this creates substantial uncertainty. Now, let's look at the Federal Reserve for a moment because they tell us a little bit about their renovations, which Donald Trump tends to merge between two different buildings, the Eckles building and the Mariner project.
Like there are multiple buildings around the Federal Reserve in DC. The Federal Reserve is governed by very clear oversight in DC about how things should be built. It's basically built in a swamp. I'm not here to defend their spending. Some people say the Federal Reserve spends money that they have that they've created from market operations because they used to run at a profit.
They're running at a little bit of a loss now, but they made a lot of money in the past. And so they have this congressionally approved money that they're spending in accordance with essentially the disclosures that they've made since then. They've made a v video describing this. This is the preservation of two historic buildings that have not been renovated since their construction in 1930.
They're trying to improve health and the safety uh of these buildings. Very normal phrases. Major structural work, bringing things up to modern code. They're putting a parking structure underneath the actual office buildings, which is basically in a swamp, which is very expensive. When the two buildings are complete, the Fed will be able to consolidate most of their operations and actually reduce costs.
So, they're arguing that, hey, we could have fewer staff. We could actually save money over time. That's why we need these renovations. Here's the Eckles building, how we're ventilating and renovating the project right now. I would love to tour this. By the way, if anybody at the Federal Reserve is watching this, please as like it's like a citizen journalist, I would do anything and I will fly out there on a moment's notice to go to DC and look at the renovation.
I'm a real estate guy, you know, former licensed contractor. I could not be more excited to to like comment on this. These right here, we've got structural uh uh these are structural steel frames around the windows, by the way, since we have block walls over here. Well, brick walls. See what else we can see.
Concrete. These look to be uh sort of more like historic finishes or whatever. Um I mean just various different Tyvec shots. These aren't This isn't the best videography. You know, they could do a lot better here. So, they're showing a dirty window. I don't know why they're showing this. Oh, I guess they have like little I forgot to read this crap over here.
Replace building utilities on their useful life. Fair. Uh open historic skylights to let more light in. Fine. Protect and retain original boardroom murals. Install safety catwalk. Obviously, asbestous removal from windows. I mean, between you and me, this is freaking But like when you're doing like a, you know, government spending project, they do it with these standards that are like way overkill.
Especially coaul isn't really fryable. It's not going to get in your lungs. But I guess when you're scraping it off or sanding it off, yes, there's a risk. You should be wearing P100s. Uh, but you know, that's those aren't expensive. Remove structurally on sound floor to restore original skylight. uh match elevator landing with conference room floor height to improve accessibility for people with disabilities.
Location of vegetated roofs often referred to as green roofs for storm water management and energy efficiency. So this is where you know VA vote calls this a rooftop garden but there it's not uncommon to vegetate flat roofs or put something on a flat roof to actually help insulate the building or minimize the wear and tear to the very roof or to manage storm runoff, whatever.
uh atrium roofing installed uh to help expand usable safe uh space. Atrium roof also designed to bring the building up to safety standards in a cost-effective way. Asbestous abatement, that's very expensive to do it correctly. I was certified to do asbesus abatement. Uh all these skills, by the way, are great for house hack.
Like I've done so many things in in just like my career where I look at I'm like damn I keep reaching in and I'm like that's useful, that's useful, that's useful. That's so good. I I just feel so excited about what we're doing. Sorry. I get excited about business. Convert a original garage to office space.
Restore existing historical uh fountain consistent with historic preservation guidelines. I keep saying that cuz the historic societies are very challenging. West Court atrium. Additional reinforcing walls. Making things safer. New utilities. Here's the Constitution A building. That's a different one.
Restore terrace. The underground garage. New garage space. Reinforcing walls. Uh basement. restore historic offices, blah blah blah blah blah, new electrical equipment. This stuff isn't expensive, you know, whatever. New HVAC equipment installed. When you're doing government public works project stuff, it's it is very expensive.
I'm not here defending their costs. I don't have a full audit of their costs. I'm sure I can find a way to save money on it. But the point is, you know, Donald Trump's looking for anything he can to bully these people. You know, people say, "Oh, but Kevin, you know, the Fed cut 50 right before the election when Biden was elected or uh Biden was up for election and Trump won." Well, yes, but you also have to understand because those of us who watched the labor market and saw the SOM rule get triggered knew it was necessary.
So, anyway, bottom line, this increases the pressure of the market, uncertainties uh in the market. It it likely is going to increase the spread on the 102 yields curve, which creates gets us closer to recession. Shockprone. It's not great. It's another like adrenaline shock to short-term junkiness that ends up with long-term consequences.
In my opinion, Donald Trump should just stop effing with the Fed and just focus on picking a new Fed chair and just wait until Jerome Powell leaves in May. Okay. The first post Jerome Powell meeting will be in June. So, just wait. It's not that long ago. It's not that long away. But to screw with the Federal Reserve's independence, it's just a bad idea.
I don't like it. I don't support it. But here's all the color you need. And um I'm going to arrest my voice. Goodbye. Good luck. I love you all. If you want my courses, my alpha report that's coming out tomorrow, go to meet.com. If you want my artificial intelligence, go to house hack.com. Check your email.
If you got approved, by the way, to invest in house hack. You have time to fund. If you already have your application in because the broker dealer has been so overwhelmed with getting all these approvals done. So, uh check your make sure you've uploaded your tax documents. That's been a big uh thing that a lot of people have forgotten.
and you can't get approved until you upload your tax documents. So, we're just trying to be transparent, as transparent as possible. All right, folks. We'll see you next one. Goodbye. Goo.
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