Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will present the central bank’s semi-annual monetary policy report to Congress this week, and the tone will remain decidedly dour considering the current economic environment. I anticipate he will be asked why the Fed is not pushing policy further in an effort to accelerate the recovery. Powell will surely keep the door wide open for easier policy, but he can do even better. He should argue that the Federal Open Market Committee did, in fact, ease policy last week, but it was so subtle I wonder if Powell even noticed it himself. As was widely expected, the FOMC held policy steady ... (full story)