Topline<\/p>\n
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday he believes some sectors of the economy are in a recession or at risk of one, blaming the Federal Reserve for not cutting interest rates fast, just one day after newly appointed Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran warned of high interest rates triggering a recession in an interview with The New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bessent blamed the Federal Reserve for not cutting interest rates fast enough.<\/p>\n AFP via Getty ImagesKey Facts<\/p>\n In an interview<\/a> with CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union\u201d on Sunday, Bessent said he believed the economy was in a \u201ctransition period,\u201d noting that the Trump administration has cut government spending, which he blamed for high inflation after the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n Bessent told CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper he believes \u201cwe are in good shape,\u201d despite some sectors of the economy being \u201cin recession,\u201d which he blamed on Federal Reserve policies. <\/p>\n The treasury secretary gave the housing market as an example, insisting \u201cif the Fed brings down mortgage rates, they can end this housing recession.\u201d<\/p>\n What We Don\u2019t Know<\/p>\n The status of the economy remains largely unclear based on available data, since the Bureau of Labor Statistics stopped collecting and publishing data during the ongoing government shutdown. <\/p>\n Is The Housing Market In A Recession?<\/p>\n The housing market is showing some signs of a recession, according to experts who spoke to the Wall Street Journal<\/a> in August and real estate agents who cited a slow environment for sales when speaking to The New York Times<\/a> in July. However, existing home sales rose 1.5% in September after stalling earlier this year, according to data from the National Association of Realtors<\/a>, with sales growing in every region except the Midwest. The group\u2019s chief economist credited this rise in sales to lower mortgage rates, echoing Bessent\u2019s remarks Sunday. However, Oxford economists who spoke to Reuters<\/a> said they expected sales to move \u201csideways\u201d until the economy and labor market also improve. Consumer confidence about the economy and the availability of jobs remains low, according to recent polling<\/a>.<\/p>\n Key Background<\/p>\n The Federal Reserve cut interest rates<\/a> by a quarter of a percentage point last Wednesday, the second time in two months. Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has called for more aggressive rate cuts, and criticized the Fed\u2019s Chair Jerome Powell for interest rates remaining stable for the first nine months of the year. Miran, who Trump appointed to the Board of Governors in August, was one of only two dissenting voices at the Fed\u2019s meeting Wednesday, and instead called for a much larger half percentage point reduction. Despite the pressure from Trump and Miran, Powell said another rate cut was \u201cnot a foregone conclusion\u201d at the Fed\u2019s last meeting of the year, in December. The other dissenting vote Wednesday came from Kansas City Fed president and CEO Jeffrey Schmid, who argued against<\/a> cutting rates at all.<\/p>\n Further ReadingForbesHow Close Is The U.S. To A Recession? Here\u2019s What Key Indicators Say.By Derek Saul<\/a>ForbesTrump Won\u2019t Deny There Could Be A Recession\u2014Warns Of \u2018Period Of Transition\u2019 In EconomyBy Alison Durkee<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Topline Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday he believes some sectors of the economy are in a recession…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,4168,13207,16065,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-240444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-federal-reserve","11":"tag-recession","12":"tag-scott-bessent","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}