Even Jerome Powell doesn’t know what’s going on with the economy | CNN Business

In normal times, the Federal Reserve would more or less ignore an oil price shock like the one we’re in now. Oil is notoriously volatile, and high prices inevitably come down to earth after too long, making any Fed policy action on energy prices more or less moot. Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday noted that tariffs – another economic annoyance the Fed typically “looks through,” to use the fedspeak term – had already clouded the central bank’s ability to see what’s going on. If you think of tariffs as a translucent sheet of glass and you add oil’s translucent glass behind it, you basically have an opaque economy that the Fed can no longer “look through.” That’s why Powell used the word “uncertain” seven times during his press briefing and twice in the Fed’s policy statement Wednesday. He just doesn’t know what’s happening with the economy. And if Powell, America’s top economic policymaker, doesn’t know, God help business leaders and consumers trying to make it through this environment. That uncertainty is why economists are increasingly worried that companies may pause their hiring plans and consumers may rein in spending. It’s not exactly a