 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Minor Issues Podcast. I'm Mark Thornton at the Mises Institute. Well, the Federal Reserve met and had its press conference this week, and most commentators said it was a nothing meeting where nothing was done, they didn't raise interest rates and so forth, but it actually was in an important sense of what the Fed told us, and essentially the Fed doubled down on its policy. They told us that we're going from the touch-and-go economy of the last three years to a touch-and-go landing economy moving forward. They increased their predictions for the economy, doubling the rate of economic growth that they project for this year, and increasing next year's projection by 50 percent of economic growth. As we all know, the economy has been touch-and-go since the government's COVID deluge of federal spending, of money pumping, and of course the daily emergency broadcasting system from Washington, D.C., during COVID itself, telling us what we must do and what jobs must be taken offline, we must wear masks and so forth. Fortunately, we're over that, but we've been in this pins-and-needles economy ever since, so touch-and-go to you and me means that something is very uncertain, something is very unsure, or dubious, there's a great deal of caution associated with an uncertainty about anything that is touch-and-go, and so since the COVID deluge, a lot of that continues today. We went through the period of shortages where basic necessities, auto parts, toilet paper, and so forth were not on the shelves, and then we faced the inflationary price spiral from the Federal Reserve's monetary policy that has increased prices for goods across the economy, and leaves many of us wondering what's next. Fortunately, the Fed's inflation, which is seeing prices rise about 20% since that COVID onslaught, whereas if you look at the previous time period equivalent, it was only about 6%. So, prices have been increasing because of the Federal Reserve at triple the traditional rate, and then of course in more recent times, we've been under the Federal Reserve threat of its monetary policy, where it's promised to increase interest rates and mortgage rates, credit card rates, and so forth, and increase the unemployment rate. Since March of 2022, it's raised its interest rates from 0.08% to about 5.33%, and any time you raise something from near zero, it's going to be a big increase, and in this case, the percentage increase is 6,660% since March of 2022. We all expected a hard landing almost immediately, that didn't materialize, and basically as a result of that increase in interest rate policy, we haven't seen a dramatic decline in jobs just yet, and so then there's all sorts of talks about a soft landing where the Federal Reserve pulls its dials and adjusts its policy to bring the economy right back down nice and easy to a soft landing. Yesterday's announcements and new projections about GDP growth for this year and next year tell me that the Fed is predicting and it's forecasting and it's trying to provide confidence for all of us in the economy moving forward, upping this year's growth rate by 100%, upping next year's growth rate by 50%, so that we now are being told a story of a touch and go landing. Not a hard landing, not a soft landing, but a touch and go landing. Some of you may be aware that sometimes planes come in, touch the runway, and then gun their engines and full throttle to take off up into the sky. It's something that pilots use to practice land, get more practice runs in on a given time period, saving fuel and so forth. Of course, it's also used in emergencies. If a plane is landing and something's on the runway, it has to push its engines and take off again at a moment's notice. And then of course, it's very common with aircraft carriers where those pilots train for that sort of thing on a regular basis. In fact, I think something similar existed back in the Roman Empire. This is not a sure thing. This is an attempt on the Federal Reserve to give us confidence in its ability to manage the economy. So I would not buy their story and their projections, hook, line and sinker. The Fed is constantly in its history been one where they don't talk about the negative aspects of the economy unless they're forced to, and that they're always trying to project an image of confidence in their own ability. And as we've seen, a lot of people have already been hurt by their previous projections and forecast and confidence boosting press conferences.