Federal Reserve officials made their third and final rate cut of 2024 at their meeting on Wednesday. They also forecast two fewer rate cuts in 2025 than they had previously expected, as inflation lingers and the economy remains robust.

The Fed has come a long way from just a few years ago: In 2022, inflation was more than twice its current rate and many economists thought that the central bank’s decisions might cause economic pain — and even a recession — as it rapidly lifted interest rates to slow demand and wrestle price increases back under control.

That didn’t happen. The job market slowed without falling apart, and inflation cooled so substantially that the Fed was able to begin cutting interest rates in September. Policymakers are now trying to bring inflation the rest of the way down without tanking the economy in the process.
Yet the Fed is entering a new phase in its journey toward an economic soft landing. Officials thought that it was clear that rates needed to come down notably from their 5.3 percent peak, and they have steadily lowered them to about 4.4 percent by making three back-to-back reductions. But policymakers do not want to cut rates so much that they reignite the economy — and they are now approaching the point where it is uncertain how much further rates should fall.
Fed officials predicted that they will cut rates to 3.9 percent in 2025 in fresh economic estimates released Wednesday. They then saw rates coming down to 3.4 percent in 2026, and over the longer term, they thought they would level off at 3 percent — slightly higher than what they had previously expected.
“The economic outlook is uncertain,” officials reiterated in their statement.
Fed policymakers are balancing two risks. They do not want to keep rates so high for so long that they squeeze the economy and inflict serious damage. But they also want to make sure to fully stamp out rapid inflation, so they do not want to lower rates too much and too rapidly, heating up the economy.
Their economic projections suggest that they will pause rate cuts at some point next year, making just two quarter-point cuts over the course of their eight meetings. When they last released economic projections in September, they had expected to make four rate cuts next year. They expect to make two rate cuts in 2026, and one in 2027.
But even if rate reductions are poised to slow, the question is exactly when the pause will come. Investors may get a hint of that when Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, holds a news conference with reporters at 2:30 p.m.
The Fed’s revisions come after a surprising period in the economy.
Earlier this year, the unemployment rate was climbing, hiring was slowing, and inflation had been falling steadily. But since September, the job market has shown signs of stabilizing, consumer spending has remained solid, and inflation has been more stubborn than many economists had expected. Officials lowered their expected unemployment rate for 2024 and 2025 in Wednesday’s projections, but they nudged up their inflation forecasts notably. Policymakers predicted that inflation would end 2025 at 2.5 percent, up from 2.1 percent previously and well above the central bank’s 2 percent inflation target.
That combination — of resilient growth and sticky inflation — explains the Fed’s more cautious approach.
In fact, some officials thought that the Fed should not cut interest rates this month. Beth Hammack, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, voted against the rate cut, preferring to leave borrowing costs unchanged. And while only five of the Fed’s 12 regional presidents vote on policy at any given time, three of the non-voting officials appear to have favored leaving interest rates unchanged at this meeting, based on their economic projections.

Then why in the world did they vote for him?:

A majority of Americans oppose Donald Trump’s plans to use the U.S. military to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, to instruct the U.S. Justice Department to investigate his political rivals and to pardon rioters charged with breaking into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to a nationwide Washington Post-University of Maryland poll.


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Even larger majorities of Americans oppose Trump’s plans to jail reporters for writing stories he doesn’t like and having police use force against anti-Trump protests.
The survey of 1,251 Americans was conducted weeks after Trump’s victory and sought to examine public sentiment about positions espoused by the president-elect that challenge democratic principles and strain constitutional norms, as well as views on the legitimacy of American elections after Trump’s win. Trump has claimed a broad mandate for his proposals and has selected cabinet secretaries and other executive branch officials who have expressed eagerness to carry them out. But the poll results indicate that Americans reject many of the proposals that experts say could erode the guardrails that help keep presidential power in check.



Trump does seem to have the blessing of a majority of registered Republicans for some of his most divisive ideas, including 77 percent who back his pledge to use the armed forces to carry out mass deportations compared with 42 percent of Americans overall. Nearly 6 in 10 Republicans say they support the Justice Department investigating Trump’s enemies, whereas fewer than 4 in 10 Americans overall agree. And 60 percent of Republicans back Trump pardoning Jan. 6 convicts, almost double the 32 percent of Americans in general who feel the same.

“I find it mostly disheartening that there is so much division. There is a fundamental disagreement about basic norms and basic facts,” said Mike Hanmer, a government and politics professor at the University of Maryland. “We’re not on the same page in terms of how we deal with power and how we hold power accountable.”
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Americans are also split over how Trump will behave as president this time. The poll finds 40 percent think he will try to rule as a dictator, 41 percent say he won’t and another 19 percent aren’t sure. Yet Americans widely have faith in democratic institutions, with 71 percent saying constitutional guardrails like the checks and balances of Congress and the Supreme Court would block Trump from securing total power over the country, while 25 percent think Trump would succeed if he tried.


An overwhelming majority of Americans across the political spectrum do not think Trump should jail reporters who write stories he doesn’t like. Still, 1 in 10 Americans support it, including 15 percent of Republicans and 5 percent of Democrats. Hanmer said that’s still a “dangerously high” number of people who would be okay with prosecuting journalists. During a news conference this week, Trump said he wanted to “straighten out the press” and suggested the Justice Department target the “very dishonest” media.
Separately, a 72 percent majority of Americans oppose police using force to stop anti-Trump protests; including 54 percent of Republicans. Seven in 10 Republicans support Trump firing FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, while just over half of the public overall opposes prematurely ending his 10-year term. The poll was completed before Wray announced his intention to resign last week, though Trump had sent a clear message that he intended to replace Wray when he endorsed Kash Patel as the next FBI director.
The poll also asked how people felt about President Joe Biden pardoning his son, Hunter, who had been convicted in June on tax and gun charges. Nearly 7 in 10 Americans oppose the decision, including 47 percent of Democrats and 88 percent of Republicans. Far fewer Republicans support Biden pardoning his son, who was not convicted of a violent crime, than they do Trump pardoning a group of people who engaged in a violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol.


Drew, a 31-year-old police detective in New Jersey who declined to give his last name for fear of online harassment, said he hadn’t supported Trump pardoning the Jan. 6 convicts until Biden did so for his son. Drew, who voted for Trump, said in an interview that as someone who works in law enforcement, he didn’t support what the rioters did that day. But he also said he thinks they were trying to “practice their civic duty” because the 2020 election results “didn’t seem accurate.”
The mob of Trump supporters who sought to block Congress’s certification of Biden’s victory in 2021 did so after Trump convinced them that there had been widespread voting fraud that cost him the election — despite there being no evidence of significant malfeasance. In the months leading up to the 2024 election, Trump and many of his allies baselessly warned of voting irregularities and corruption to steal the election for the Democrats. Since he won, Trump has not publicly questioned whether the election was administered fairly and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, quickly conceded defeat.
The Post-UMD poll finds 79 percent of Americans say Trump won legitimately this year while 63 percent say Biden’s victory in 2020 was fair. Acceptance of Trump’s win is bipartisan, with 96 percent of Republicans, 84 percent of independents and 70 percent of Democrats saying he won legitimately. There is also a slight uptick in Republicans accepting Biden’s 2020 win compared to a Post-UMD poll conducted in 2023. Last year, 31 percent of Republicans said Biden fairly won in 2020 and this year 41 percent do. A 58 percent majority of Republicans continue to reject Biden’s 2020 victory.




Democratic acceptance of Trump’s win this year is more than twice as high as in 2017, when a Post-UMD survey that year found 32 percent believed he legitimately won the 2016 vote. Those views were fueled by investigations of that year’s election, which found that Russia had spread disinformation to interfere on Trump’s behalf.
The poll also asked whether there was voter fraud in the 2024 election. About 1 in 6 Americans (16 percent) say there is solid evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2024 election, down from the 1 in 3 Americans (33 percent) who said this about the 2020 election in a Post-UMD poll last year. Perceptions of evidence of fraud in elections have plummeted among Republicans. Last year, 62 percent of Republicans said there was proven fraud in the 2020 election compared to 21 percent today who say there was in this year’s election. (There is no evidence of widespread fraud in either election.)

“The Republican base will believe what Trump says about this,” Hanmer said.



Thomas Sweeney, a 74-year-old from Texas, said he voted reluctantly for Trump. He blames the president-elect for the Jan. 6 attack and, as a West Point graduate, said he strongly opposes using the military for any domestic matters, including deportations. He also believes Trump will try to rule as a dictator, but is hopeful Congress will stand up to him.

“We need to have Congress be able to flex their muscles and not roll over every time he yells about something,” Sweeney said.
Americans are also divided over whether Trump will try to stay in office after his second term ends in 2029, despite the Constitution saying a president can only be elected to president twice. Just under half, 48 percent, say he will try to stay in the White House for a third term, and 50 percent say he will step down. Some Trump allies, like former adviser Stephen K. Bannon, have already floated the idea that Trump could run again because his terms were not consecutive. Constitutional scholars say the theory has no basis.



Overall, Americans are at odds over what Trump’s election means for the country. About 3 in 10 say his election is “a crisis for the country,” while a similar share say it is “great for the country.” About 2 in 10 say his win is a setback, but not a crisis, and roughly the same share say it is good, but not great.

Between the QBs we know who will be in the spring and all the talk around Beau Pribula, curious what everyone thinks.

The NFL will have a NEW champion!
Those High Ankle sprains are a bad thing…….

Cleveland says, “You’re welcome!”

MLB is going to modify the PitchCom system and give pitchers the option of calling their own signals. The experiment will start on February 24 and the league will evaluate the results during spring training to decide whether or not to use it during the regular season.

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Wow, hope this kid enjoys running for his life behind that shit show of a line.
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Dems have plans for Trump administration

WATCH:

HERE WE GO! Vaccine researcher Peter Hotez says multiple viruses will be unleashed on America the day after Trump takes office
“We have some big picture stuff coming down the pike starting on January 21st.”
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— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) December 4, 2024

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First of all, a 1500 plus page bill is absurd. I bet zero congress people know everything in this bill but will vote yes anyways. My opinion, shut it down.

Oh Lord, have some self-respect Kirk

Opponent: University of Albany Great Danes
Date: Aug. 30, 2025
Location: Iowa City, Iowa

Many of you know the US and Russia both had many communications stations around the world during the Moon race. The russians could easily aim two of their antennae at our signals from the Apollo 11 Lunar landing on the moon to figure out the yes those signals intersect with our antennae at an angle that puts the source about 240,000 miles away right in line with the Moon. The British and other countries with antennae around the world could do this also.

As someone on this thread mentioned, if the triangulation didnt measure correctly we know the Soviets would have been screaming to high heaven with their evidence. But it did.

If a flat-Earther looks that the very famous picture taken by Voyager 1, the picture from about 7 million miles from Earth that is the first ever picture to capture both the Earth and the Moon in the same frame, and they do not see the terminator line where sunlight and darkness meet on their surfaces as curved showing their spherical shape then you can tell them they are stupid and insane.

Also, for proof, you may know that the Greek philosopher Eratosthenes used different lengths of shadows cast at different places on Earth about 2200 years ago to really accurately measure the circumference of the Earth. He showed that the Earth is not flat because the shadows in Greece, the Nile Delta, and much farther south on the Nile had different angles. A flat Earth would have shadows at the same angle.



What logic would you use, what arguments? I have mine but I will save them for awhile before I put them here as I want to hear your ideas first.

And what are some other crazy notions that people ascribe to and believe?

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YEMASSEE, S.C. (WCSC/Gray News) - Four monkeys remain uncaptured weeks after 43 primates escaped from a research facility in South Carolina.

The rhesus macaque monkeys escaped from Alpha Genesis near Yemassee on Nov. 7.

On Sunday, the company’s CEO, Greg Westergaard, said his team still sees the remaining four monkeys together in a tree almost daily.

“The four monkeys look good, and engage in species-typical behaviors such as grooming and tree-climbing,” he said in a statement. “I could have them darted but have not given that directive because it could pose a danger to the monkeys and since they are doing well, we are just waiting for them to go in the traps.”


Westergaard said the 39 primates that were recaptured are in good health.

He confirmed in mid-November that there was no structural failure in the containment area where the monkeys are kept. He said there are two gates you must pass through to get inside the main enclosure where the monkeys live.

The company is assuming the failure to secure the gates “was the result of human error rather than malice,” Westergaard said, but he added that they have no way of knowing that for certain.

The employee who was responsible for leaving the gates open left the facility after the monkeys escaped, but Westergaard said he was not aware of any argument or disagreement involving the employee that would have been a motive for leaving the gates open on purpose.


Westergaard said they continue to provide fruit and other treats to the four escaped monkeys, which he said “probably slows down the trapping process” but added that it seems to him to be “the right thing to do.”

”Rhesus monkeys are native to the Himalayan Mountains in Northern India, so the relatively mild Lowcountry winters are not an issue for them,” he said.

This is the first update on the ongoing efforts to recapture the last of the escaped primates since news broke weeks ago that the U.S. Department of Agriculture was reviewing a complaint against the research facility.

The animal rights activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said it submitted whistleblower complaints alleging misconduct.


“I can confirm that we recently received a complaint with some detailed allegations and that we are reviewing them to determine whether there are Animal Welfare Act noncompliance we need to follow up on,” USDA spokesman R. Andre Bell said in a statement.

Alpha Genesis did not respond to requests for comment on the complaint, and the USDA has not provided updates on where that review stands.

Over the last 10 years, the facility has received over $130 million from the Department of Health and Human Services with the majority of that funding coming from taxpayer dollars.

What's going on here? I've seen multiple sites that show Iowa has a top 20 NIL collective program, yet I continue to hear we have no money. For the last few years Iowa has brought in some of the lowest transfer numbers of any P5 program, so where is the money going? I'm seeing programs like Minnesota, Iowa State, Kansas, Texas Tech and others that supposedly don't have near the collective programs that Iowa does but yet they seem to be attracting players that we cannot. Is it the numbers are a lie? If so, why are the numbers so low? I think it might have to do with that greater than 50% of our fans are no longer "excited" about Iowa football anymore. We have a coach that's been here for 3 decades and has spent all 3 decades preaching "we're not sexy" and now the rest of the country see us as such and many players are not even giving us a look. Thoughts?

Do you tuck or untuck your shirts in the office? And how old are you when you started doing it?

I’m 36 and still rock the untucked polo. Not sure when the move to tucking in shirts happen but idk if that happens with my generation.

"The Biden administration has renewed a science and technology cooperation agreement with China despite complaints about Beijing’s theft of American technology and damaging state-linked hacking operations. The State Department announced Friday that the 1979 agreement that lapsed this summer had been extended for five years..."

A 2018 White House report estimated that China’s technology theft costs American companies $225 billion to $600 billion annually. Former National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander has described Chinese theft of U.S. technology as “the greatest transfer of wealth in human history.”

Security officials recently said Chinese intelligence-linked hackers have broken into computer networks of U.S. telecommunications firms and critical infrastructure networks for spying and plotting sabotage.
The House recently passed legislation requiring any extension of the science and technology agreement with China to include 15 days’ notice to Congress, explicit protections for human rights, and curbs on dual civilian-military research.

“While not yet law, the Biden Administration’s decision to ignore Congress’s articulated guardrails is alarming,” the committee said in a statement.

Jaxx DeJean is the first in-state prospect that Iowa has offered in the Class of 2027 and the second overall for the Hawkeyes in his class, which just finished their freshman year of high school.


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Happening on February 2 against USC.
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Elliot, Seeing lots of portable discussions, but wonder if some of the walkons like Wetjen and Rexroth will be put on scholarship. They’ve paid their dues.

The University of Iowa announced plans to honor former Hawkeye women's basketball star Caitlin Clark on Wednesday.
According to a press release from the university, Iowa will hold a ceremony inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena ahead of its home matchup against USC on Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025 to retire Clark's No. 22 jersey.
"I'm forever proud to be a Hawkeye and Iowa holds a special place in my heart that is bigger than just basketball,” Clark said. "It means the world to me to receive this honor and to celebrate it with my family, friends and alumni. It will be a great feeling to look up in the rafters and see my jersey alongside those that I've admired for so long."

Clark will attend the game against the Trojans, which is set to tip off at 12:30 p.m. (CT) and will also feature a blackout theme for the crowd. Broadcast coverage will be provided by FOX and the Hawkeye Radio Network.

​

“Caitlin Clark has not only redefined excellence on the court but has also inspired countless young athletes to pursue their dreams with passion and determination,” Iowa Director of Athletics Beth Goetz said. “Her remarkable achievements have left an indelible mark on the University of Iowa and the world of women’s basketball. Retiring her number is a testament to her extraordinary contributions and a celebration of her legacy that will continue to inspire future generations. Hawkeye fans are eager to say thank you for so many incredible moments.”


Last season, Clark broke Kelsey Plum's record to become the all-time women's NCAA Division I scoring leader, and also broke Lynette Woodard's AIAW scoring record and Pete Maravich's all-time Division I men's and women's scoring record.


Clark received the Wooden, Naismith, Wad, Anny Meyers Drysdale, Honda Cup and AAU Sullivan awards twice during her Hawkeye career.


She was also named 2024 Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year by the Collegiate Women Sports Awards (CWSA) and 2024 Athlete of the Year by TIME Magazine. She is also a three-time winner of the Nancy Lieberman Point Guard Award and is the first-ever three-time winner of the Dawn Staley Award.

During her time in Iowa City, the Hawkeyes experienced unparalleled success, claiming three Big Ten Tournament titles (2022, 2023, 2024) and reached the NCAA National Championship in 2023 and 2024.
Since leaving Iowa, Clark led the Indiana Fever to the WNBA playoffs in her first professional season while leading the league in assists. The Dowling Catholic product also earned WNBA All-Star, All-WNBA First Team and WNBA All-Rookie Team honors in 2024.