The Interbank Market News Scan: I expect the euro to continue dropping throughout the day… 8:45 AM EST

Looming in the background is the negative impact a slowed down economy will have on the Biden Administration and to a lesser extent the incumbents in the Congress. As the Biden Administration and the Congress negotiate the debt ceiling, there is the threat that fiscal policy in the form of higher taxes may be offered up as a way to shore up lacking tax revenue. This will also put a crimp on household and business spending.

The Community Reinvestment Act not an example of political outcome for blacks

Black politicians concerned about protecting their communities via banking should have been advocating that the Federal Reserve increase rates hard and fast. While the increase in rates would have been accompanied by a decrease in house prices, non-blacks would have thought twice about buying up black neighborhoods while black homeowners using data evincing falling values could have petitioned for lower property taxes based on those falling values.

Interbank market news scan: The jobs report wraps up the Holy Week.

Mr Biden may have missed an opportunity to craft a narrative that emphasizes the importance of getting ahead of the inflationary impact of blocks of emerging economies threatening to transition from the US dollar to resource-backed currencies. These threats have yet to materialize into something definitive and until then the inflationary impact of dumping the US dollar or at least complementing it with other currencies is a way off.

Interbank Market News Scan: Central bank digital currencies are likely more about efficiently changing the money supply.

The Federal Reserve’s intent around central bank digital currency is to create a direct and efficient way to manipulate money supply. A programmable digital currency that regulates spending via some algorithm or all out reduces dollar amounts in accounts again by some algorithm would save the Federal Open Market Committee two days of hair pulling decisions. CBDCs would amount to their unique version of ChatGPT, an artificial monetary policy environment that reduces the FOMC’s role to monitoring and advising versus direct policy action.