What is FOMC and why Should You Care?
The Federal Reserve’s policy interest rates—the discount rate, interest on reserves (IOR) rate, and the subsequent federal funds rate—along with the pace at which the Fed creates or destroys bank reserves by buying and selling securities, are all set by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) eight times a year. This is the same meeting where Jay Powell announces on a Wednesday whether rates are going up, down, or staying the same.
The FOMC was established by the Banking Act of 1933, also known as the Glass-Steagall Act, and comprises twelve voting members. Although Jay Powell is the chairman of the Federal Reserve System, he only has one vote on the FOMC.
Who are the others?
The FOMC is comprised of seven members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (of which Powell is one), the President of the New York Fed, and the Presidents of four of the twelve regional Federal Reserve banks, which rotate every year.
Side note: The Federal Reserve has an unusual hierarchy, where governors rank higher than presidents. A governor heads most central banks overseas.
The Fed governors, just like the chairman, are nominated by the U.S. President and confirmed by the Senate. However, they serve fourteen-year terms. Although the Fed chairman serves only a four-year term, their governor seat lasts fourteen years.
How many voting governors are up for exit and potentially replaceable during Trump’s term?
Just two of seven.
Adriana Kugler’s term expires in 2026, and Powell’s term as governor expires in 2028. Therefore, five of the seven voting governors will not change under President Trump.
As for the regional bank presidents, they serve five-year terms, and a few of those will expire during Trump’s term. New York Fed president John Williams’ term expires in 2026. A couple of others expire soon, like the Atlanta (2026), Chicago (2027), and Dallas Fed presidents (2027).
However, most of those presidents will opt to serve for another five-year term, and even if they choose to retire, the U.S. President has no say over who is nominated to replace them. New regional bank presidents are nominated by the regional bank’s Board of Directors and confirmed by the Federal Reserve System’s Board of Governors.
So let’s say Trump nominates a new Fed chairman who agrees to do his bidding and push interest rates down as far as the White House asks.
First we have to assume that, like some Supreme Court justices or even Jay Powell himself, the new Fed chair doesn’t just tell the President what he wants to hear and, once he’s in office (sorry for the PC crowd, I’m just going to use “he” to make it easier from here on out), decides to march to his beat. We also have to assume that if, as a nominee, he’s suspected of advocating super low interest rates, he doesn’t fail to secure enough Senate confirmation votes.
Then, if he survives all that and does want to cut rates to 1% (as President Trump requested), he’s still only one voting member on a policy committee of twelve. Granted, the chairman has more influence on the committee than any other single member. Still, if his policy is viewed as too radical, he can be, and has been historically, outvoted by his colleagues.
This famously happened during the Jimmy Carter presidency. Carter handpicked Fed Chair G. William Miller, an industrial CEO with no experience in money or banking matters, which made him malleable to White House direction. Carter demanded a high inflation policy that he believed, incorrectly, would end a decade of stagflation. Initially, Miller accommodated by using a faster and faster printing press, and even pushed for more when inflation had surpassed 10%. Eventually, the ultra-dovish Miller was being outvoted by the rest of the FOMC, and Paul Volcker replaced him.
Meanwhile, President Trump will have minimal influence over the other eleven FOMC members. Five of the seven governors are going nowhere during Trump’s term because their terms don’t expire until 2030, 2032, 2034, 2036, and 2038, respectively. Most of the rotating regional voting presidents aren’t going anywhere either, although it’s possible that of the two or three whose terms expire soon, some may choose not to stay on.
However, their replacements are then selected by the regional Fed bank’s Board of Directors, not Trump, and confirmed by the Board of Governors. The Board of Governors has seven members, five of whom aren’t changing during Trump’s term, so there’s no way he can load it up with allies to get a handful of voting Fed presidents he wants. The bottom line is that simply changing one Fed chairman isn’t going to give Trump nearly the degree of control he wants over monetary policy. Absent a recession or crisis, Trump is unlikely to see 1% rates anytime soon.
Ghetto Stores
The article reports that several major retailers—including Kroger’s Pick ’n Save, Walgreens, and CVS—are closing multiple stores in predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods of Milwaukee.
Critics and local activists allege that the closures reflect racial bias, contributing to growing “food deserts” and denying essential grocery access to already vulnerable communities. I suggest that the local activists and critics pool their money and present themselves as retailers (victims of gangs and thieves) in areas where they’re defunded or demoralized the police.
City officials, including Alderwoman Sharlen P. Moore, expressed concerns that affected residents—many of whom are without cars—may lose convenient access to food and essentials due to store shutdowns.
ZeroHedge frames the closures as part of a broader pattern: stores exiting areas with high crime and theft rates, regardless of racial demographics. The article argues that these decisions are driven not by overt prejudice but by economic necessity, pointing to persistent retail theft in these neighborhoods and lower profitability thresholds.
The piece challenges the narrative of victimization, asserting that communities alone bear responsibility for improving local behaviors, and posits that systemic change—like reducing crime—must precede retail investment.
LL: Let the socialists deal with the situations they have created.
They Decided NOT to be Hunted
Can Energy Produce Matter?
Physicists created matter from pure light, proving Einstein’s 90-year-old prediction.
In one of the most extreme experiments in modern physics, scientists at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have turned light into matter, creating particles from pure energy using two beams of gamma rays. It’s a breakthrough that proves a key aspect of Einstein’s E=mc² in its rawest form. The experiment used the powerful Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), where laser beams were focused onto gold foils to create short bursts of high-energy photons. When these photons collided in a vacuum chamber, they produced electron-positron pairs — particles with mass, born from nothing but light.
This reaction — known as the Breit-Wheeler process — was theorized in 1934 but has never been directly observed in a laboratory. SLAC’s success marks the first experimental confirmation of matter creation from photon-photon collisions without relying on nuclei. It’s like watching the early universe in a bottle.
Beyond its elegance, this could help explain the behavior of cosmic rays, black hole radiation, and the creation of matter after the Big Bang. It may also inform new clean energy concepts — turning pure energy into controlled particles with zero waste. In a world accustomed to converting matter into energy (as in nuclear bombs or reactors), this experiment reverses the equation, demonstrating that we can also convert energy into matter.
Hardcore Ham Radio Person
Bullet Points:
** Pleasant Mart – Shelby, NC
**This is how it goes when I’m on a diet.
** There has been a flap about the Federal Reserve’s Marriner S. Eccles Building’s refurbishment expenses for about $2.5 billion (likely to overrun to $3.1 billion). That’s around $3,000 per square foot. It seems steep to me, but I’ve been known to pinch a penny, and that concept is unknown in Washington, DC. Public buildings are supposed to create awe. I look at a building I wouldn’t be invited to enter and say, “uhhh.” It’s not exactly like “awe,” but there you go, and Bob’s your uncle. Taxpayers do not directly fund the Federal Reserve (Fed) through congressional appropriations. Instead, it is self-funded and covers its operating expenses, including building modifications and renovations, through its earnings. The Fed’s primary source of income is the interest earned on the government securities it acquires through open market operations. The Fed also charges depository institutions fees for services such as check clearing, fund transfers, and automated clearinghouse (ACH) operations. The Federal Reserve System also earns interest on investments in foreign currencies. Income from interest on loans to depository institutions is another source of funds for the Fed.
** In the hospital with Mike_C.
** Insights into nursing.
**In the Winnebago with EdB.
** Computer models said subprime mortgages were safe. Computer models suggest that polar bears are at risk of extinction. But what happens when the models are built to prove a conclusion, not test one?
** Philippine President Marcos lays it all out for President Trump in the Oval Office.
Identify the Aircraft
1
Flown by the UK, Australia, and France
2
3
4
Identify the Warships
5 & 6
Parting Shot
Now Available at Pleasant Mart
Shelby, NC
We have considered your responses about our Shelby Residents toy line, and we are workshopping our prototypes. Our manufacturer is thinking not only of residents of Shelby, NC, but also of residents of neighboring cities who visit Pleasant Mart, which is why he wanted feedback on our Gastonia design. What y’all think?
Happy Shopping!
***
Shelby is at the heart of Cleveland County, NC. The per capita income per employed person is $29,849, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Zillow reports the average home value in Shelby as $212,804, a 6.4% decrease over the past year.
This is good news for those considering relocation. Your money will stretch a lot farther than it might elsewhere in the United States.
It could be worse. The average annual income per employed person in Winslow, Arizona, is approximately $19,946, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The average housing price is $199,000, but the market is currently soft.
End
1 is de Havilland DH.112 Sea Venom early British carrier jet.
2 is Soviet Lavochkin La-5
The Sea Venom was an experiment the way I view things, but the Brits seemed to think that it was more of a “finished product” – until they didn’t.
I take great pleasure in reading through the related posts and comments. I only have a short window early and late for such frivolity. I take my pleasure when and where I can.
Identify the Aircraft:
1. de Havilland Sea Vampire
2. Lavochkin La-7 ‘Fin’
3. Kaman K-MAX
4. Handley Page Hampden
Identify the Warships:
5. USS Cole (DD-155)
6. USS Langley (CV-1)
Well done.
IDA-
1. de Havilland DH 112 Venom
2. Lavochkin La-9
3. Kaman K-MAX helicopter
4. Caproni Ca.311, an Italian twin-engine reconnaissance bomber and light bomber
ID WARSHIPS-
5. USS Langley (CV-1), the United States Navy’s first aircraft carrier.
6. USS Cole (DD-155), a Wickes-class destroyer.
#4 is a Hampden
Very good !
FOMC: Whaaaat? Really? A group who elect their own, fully outside of the Executive Branch whilst affecting WTP’s cash flow by fiat/edict? Sounds like the fox guarding the hen house to me…but what do I know, just a Peon SubClass II paying their bloated salaries.
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Inner City Store Closings: The ‘race’ argument is used by the ignorant, emoting for affect, a total “lack of critical thought” in order to couch the argument to be the opposite of what it is not. Same as Colbert getting axed, his lack of ratings was unsustainable as a profit center….no more complicated than that…but…but…”PDJT i s a menace to late night TV freedom of speech!”. Baloney.
***
Energy into Matter: Makes sense, right? Energy has to go somewhere when forced “backwards”. Can’t imagine being in that lab doing it, what could possibly go wrong when someone trips over the plug? (thinking a Larson Far Side bit). Wild process nonetheless.
***
Computer Models: Recall a visit to NCAR (Boulder CO) many moons ago…being shown their climate models. I interjected a [typical direct engineer] question, “What if the models are using a flawed premise because I recall in PA one Winter the weather modelers were calling for a mini ice age and I had to shovel abnormal 4 feet of snow in below zero temps that lasted two weeks?” It was a short visit…because…ask a Liberal ‘Piled Higher & Deeper’ an honest question and they get peeved. What I saw on screen was conjecture backed by WTP’s “grant” money to MAKE their models fit a biased [political] outcome…one they will never admit. I knew to never trust a computer (or as Wandering Neurons said the other day…and I quote: “To err is human. To really fsck things up, use a computer.”)
***
Kaman K-MAX [‘borrowed’ from Surly’s ID’g]: I want one of those.
Creature from Jekyll Island.
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Maybe if they didn’t look and burn those stores….
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Bodes a transporter machine. Reminds me of “Venus Equilateral”..
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I ran a celestial simulation program on my Commodore 64 for a friend to find the best viewing position for a solar eclipse he was flying to see in Southeast Asia in 86 or so.
It worked.
A man with good taste in Golden Age science fiction!
Thank You.
There has been a flap about the Federal Reserve’s Marriner S. Eccles Building’s refurbishment expenses for about $2.5 billion (likely to overrun to $3.1 billion).
I seem to recall the “non fed” fed is a private institution.
So, why don’t they pay for improvements themselves?
🤔
Juan
From what I gather, they ARE paying for their renovations. The $3,000 sq ft number bothers Pres. Trump, but given what they are responsible for and that they are spending their own money, I don’t have much heartburn . They don’t need the palacial square footage or the offices or 3 dining rooms, IMHO. But if it’s not taxpayer money, we don’t have much say.
It’s taxpayer’s grifted money.
Heck, knowing that crew they simply printed what they needed, with a few hundred mil here and there for “cost overruns”.
That hirsute California Excursion belongs to Dave C.
“If y’ cain’t git ’em on one band …”
She should have pronounced it “an GINA” and not “AN gina” for the joke. (There’s a bad John Blackthorne joke lurking somewhere in all that…)
Either road, not the typical cardiology patient. (The hot 20-ish Russian girl in the thigh-high leather boots who showed up for “palpitations” was such an anomaly that the office people literally “prairie dogged” up out of their cubicles. A rare event indeed.)
The discharge counter at the Boise Cardiology office has a sign “Check Out Here.” I burst out laughing and the three twenty-something’s behind the counter looked at me like I was from Uranus. Then the (older) office manager also laughed. “Funny,” she said,”I never thought of it that way” and I headed out.
My hometown had one its Walgreens, a McDonalds, and a multitude of small markets close due to the nature of the citizens that inhabit the section where they are located. According to the code of ethics in that area, robbery, shoplifting, and fear are acceptable. There is no other reason, and while I’ve never been prejudiced, someone that is has many examples to justify their position. It’s a shame, but the societal mores of that area are unacceptable for a healthy society. The only successful businesses in that area are convenience stores, and many have bulletproof enclosures for the safety of the employees.
I’d like to have a mountain goat , cruisin around the yard , that’d be cool . According to the tracks in my garden , I have ….deer , fawn, coons ,rabbits, canine (of some sort) , and cow . Goats keep the grass low , that’d be a bonus in this heat we have .
Did Mariner S. Eccles invent the Eccles Cake?
*
If so, I support his fancy new building.
– Kle.
No, Marriner S. Eccles did not invent the Eccles Cake. The Eccles Cake is a traditional British pastry with origins dating back much further than Marriner S. Eccles’ lifetime.
Here’s why Marriner S. Eccles is not associated with the Eccles cake:
Marriner S. Eccles’ background: He was a prominent American economist and banker, who served as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve under Presidents Roosevelt and Truman. He was instrumental in shaping U.S. monetary policy during the Great Depression and World War II.
Origin of the Eccles cake: The Eccles cake is named after the town of Eccles in Lancashire, England, where it was first commercially sold in 1793 by a baker named James Birch.
😁
Thinking Jules needs to weigh in on the subject, get a boots on the ground “expert” opinion.
No matter, like her sponge cake blog post a few weeks back (or was that custard…no matter, BOTH!), now I want an Eccles Cake…because…dessert matters, and life is too unpredictable to not start off with the sweet as 1st Course vs. the savory.
The Federal Reserve
Congress created it and Congress should abolish it; perhaps after the midterms.
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Hardcore Ham Radio Person——–Dr JIM’s secret ride
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Food Desert
Walmart closed a store in Aurora, CO and the usual suspects started crying “food desert”. The Mayor, Mike Caffman, posted on his Facebook page pictures of a large, well stocked, Hispanic grocery store two blocks away. The difference? A strong security setup and a zero shoplifting tolerance policy.
…and wondering why his Expedition is only getting 2mpg instead of 5 while trying to keep it at 65 on the highway.
I never have, and never will, put that many antennas on my vehicle……
No Paul M, no. It’s not about whether the Federal Reserve Board are foxes guarding hen houses. No, Ed B, no. It doesn’t matter if the money for the remodel is grifted. And no, WSF, no. Congress should not get rid of the Fed. (As if Congress which is something like 90%+, er, advised — yeah let’s say “advised” by people who, well … Anyway, Congress ain’t gonna do crap that might impact their … advisors.) THIS is what’s important: Does the Federal Reserve Board of Governors LOOK LIKE 2025 America?. Can a little Black girl in Camden look at the FRBoG and see herself on that Board? Just like the purpose of NASA is to make Muslims feel good about themselves, the purpose of the FRBoG is to give the disenfranchised and the powerless role models.
—
So I did some research into this very important topic. (Sure, superficial Wikipedia-level research, but you get what you pay for.) Brace yourselves and bear down to increase intrathoracic pressure, as if you’re straining on the toilet to poop. Don’t actually poop though. Unless you’re into that sort of thing. We don’t judge here in rainbow 2025.
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Seven Federal Reserve Board members. Are these powerful people all oppressive straight white males? Let’s do a James Watt-style (“a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple”) tally, shall we? A person can be double counted if they fall into multiple categories.
— Executive Summary —
Women: 3/7 (42.9%) Actual US population percentage = 50.5%. Under represented. Do Better!
Black: 2/7 (28.6%) Actual 14.4%; over represented nearly twofold.
Jewish: 2/7 (28.6%) Actual 2.4%; over represented more than tenfold.
Hispanic: 1/7 (14.3%) Actual 19.5%. Underrepresented. Do Better!
Generic white people (presumed): 3/7 (42.9%) Actual 60.5%. Under represented. Good. Now go screw yourselves then die, you oppressors.
Asian: 0/7 Actual ~7%. Infinitely underrepresented. But no one cares. Not clever enough to be 10x over, nor sufficiently fetishized by misplaced white guilt to be 2x over.
— Details —
Name/Position/Party: Jerome Powell/Chair/R
Ethnicity: generic white guy?
Education: Princeton, Georgetown Law
Swampy Stuff: Carlyle Group (partner)
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Name/Position/Party: Philip Jefferson/Vice Chair/D
Ethnicity: American Black
Education: Vassar (!), London School of Economics, UVA
Swampy Stuff: former faculty at Columbia, UC Berkeley
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Name/Position/Party: Michelle “Miki” Bowman/Vice Chair for Supervision/R
Ethnicity: generic white person?
Education: Univ Kansas, Washburn Univ Law (Topeka)
Swampy Stuff: ?
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Name/Position/Party: Christopher Waller/Member/R
Ethnicity: generic white guy?
Education: Bemidji State Univ, Wash State Univ; former faculty at Indiana U, U Kentucky, Notre Dame
Swampy Stuff: personally, who knows; but replaced Sarah Bloom Raskin (wife of Jamie Raskin) on Fed Board (small world, innit?)
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Name/Position/Party: Lisa Cook/Member/D
Ethnicity: American Black
Education: Spelman College, UC Berkeley; Mich State Univ faculty, former visiting faculty at Harvard Business School and Kennedy School
Swampy Stuff:
• She “has physical scars from being attacked by segregationists when she enrolled in a formerly White school”
• Her research suggested that violence against African-Americans under the Jim Crow laws led to a lower than expected number of actual patents filed; however, a recent review of this research has revealed that the apparent drop in patents was merely an accounting error on her part
• she has collated a long-running database on lynching in the United States.
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Name/Position/Party: Michael Barr/Member/D
Ethnicity: Jewish
Education: Yale; Magdalen College, Oxford (Rhodes Scholar); Yale Law; faculty University of Michigan Law School
Swampy Stuff: maybe? (buncha stuff I don’t understand). If Yale and Oxford aren’t swampy enough. Michigan can be swampy too.
—
Name/Position/Party: Adriana Kugler/Member/D
Ethnicity: Jewish and Hispanic
Education: McGill, UC Berkeley; faculty at Univ Houston, somewhere in Barcelona, currently Georgetown
Swampy Stuff: ? As with Barr (above) I don’t know enough to evaluate. Georgetown is pretty swampy, I guess.
— Commentary —
Less Harvard/Yale than I’d have expected. More UC Berkeley than I thought. That Lisa Cook person sounds like she’d be a fun person to talk with. Just delightful.
I KNEW IT!…as soon as I read the first line. Whew, thank God for this research Mike…now I am fully informed. Maybe not the fox guarding the hen house, but definitely me guarding the cookie jar right after mom put away the fresh baked choco-chip cookies (her special recipe) and promising her I would not steal one. But THIS brilliant (medically clinically speaking of course) line sums it up, as in, basically for ALL of Congress:
“Brace yourselves and bear down to increase intrathoracic pressure, as if you’re straining on the toilet to poop.”
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Quintessential Mike_C…you did not disappoint. Well done. (except now I’ll have that on the brain for the next 24 hours…or month).
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Problem is, regardless where the money is so-called “coming from”…WTP will take it in the shorts (which, currently, are down around our ankles according to you quoted above. The nice thing is, TARIFFS ARE WORKING as PDJT said they would – and – every “expert” (basically the non-believers, The Left and ALL of the Dems and some R’s) was so wrong they were past the warning track and into the North 40 parking lot outside the stadium.
Since the 3 Rules of Plumbing are: 1) Stink goes up, 2) “crap” goes down, and 3) never lick yer fingers…this may bode well tho as America tries to…err…”shed” itself from the grifters and cheats, let’s hope they can be flushed down the pipe into the holding tank where they belong and the stink goes up and dissipates into the atmosphere to aid in GlobalCoolingWarmingClimateWhatever it is these days.
Dr Mike is now Dr No?
The confirmation at SLAC reminds me of an old SciFi movie, “Kronos”.
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That Ham lives in Orange, CA. He’s what’s called a “Whacker” for some reason.
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The picture of the LA-9 was taken at the Chino airport. I recognize the terrain, and I’ve seen the plane there.
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Chapter 4337 of “How to find offense in any and everything”.
“FOURUNE TELER”?
Fou=crazy
Rune=Norse letters (e.g. Elder Futhark)
Why are you calling Nordic culture crazy? Don’t deny it. Don’t try to weasel out of this by claiming it’s just an AI art error. I’m on to you! Centuries of anti-Nordicsm must stop now. Admit it. You hate us for our morality and our G-dliness, neither of which you people can abide. And you hate us for our beauty. [okay, that one actually makes sense in the Nordic context; oops. Blind hogs and acorns people. Just move along.]
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That was a free sample of How to be Offended. Click like and subscribe for more civilization-wrecking malbehavior tips.
Ah yes, “food deserts” again… And once more they refuse to actually SAY the real reason… Community behavior. I do agree that it should be on the community to clean up their own act if they want to keep that “food desert” from happening to them. One cannot expect the stores to continue to operate at a loss forever…
Re the K-Max, they also can fly without a pilot, just an autopilot to ‘deliver’ the goods.
I’m more than a little disappointed. Are you suggesting that our money supply is somehow…. corrupt?