(my handy dandy graphs)
When the "Great Recession" hit in 2008, the rates were stepped down to and eventually hit near 0 (~0.25%). In March of 2009 during Obama's first year in office, the stock market had crashed from a high of ~14,000 in October 2008, down to ~6000.
The rates stayed near 0 for the next 7 years, which was sort of unprecedented. By then, the economy had recovered thanks to various stimulus projects like ARRA... job creation was underway, and the markets came back. That is when the rates were ticked up and QE was being reduced.
The increases continued into 45's first term (I think there were 8 of them), before he started yelling and the hikes were halted. THEN the pandemic hit, the economy crashed, and the UE had skyrocketed upwards to near 16%.
And BAM! Interest rates were dropped back down again.
When Biden came in, he had to spend his 4 years cleaning up THAT mess by pumping out stimulus, which apparently triggered inflation and up the rates went, but down came the UE with that.
Once things stabilized, the Fed has been stepping the rates down to "keep a lid on" inflation and it was just about there getting close to their preferred "2%" (I think it was around or under 2.9%) before 45 came in to toss a grenade into the whole thing.
The tariffs are going to add a variable into how they handle the interest rates because of the uncertainty of how much the bigger corporations are going to "eat" before doing a massive passing on of the cost to the consumers and with an AI bubble underway, we may end up mirroring what happened in the '90s with the dotcom bubble. And worse come to worse, with all the talk of "stagflation", we may repeat the '70s!
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