necessary, they re just nice to have, not a need to have, but a nice to have. now, let me take you through some nerdy numbers here, in 2008, the federal reserve cut interest rates. that was the last time it did so. the economy was growing at negative 8.4%. unemployment was at 7.3%. today an entirely different picture. the economy is growing at 2.1%. that s why economists are calling this an insurance cut with the federal reserve is trying to do is extend the economic growth that we ve seen over the last 10 years, and potentially provide some protective padding around the economy if it hits a rough patch. politically, this is a big win for trump, because it helps is
months, a year later, markets aren t the only thing that is up. so is the economy. that politically would be helpful to the president. wouldn t it? certainly. i think this is one of the reasons why trump was hoping for a larger cut to stimulate the economy ahead of the 2020 elections. this will be a very big issue that republicans are trying to tout. so the economy is strong, harder for democrats and everybody running against not only the president but nationwide and races for congress that things need change in washington. look at some instances where we saw a rate cut to start. usually they come in threes. not always. in 84, a rate-cutting came even before alan greenspan. we saw the situation improve for the markets and the economy and led the way for ronald reagan s re-election, that was not much in doubt any why by the time we got to november of 84. the same later on after the
we begin with lauren. what happened? let s just put this in perspective, neil. this is the first rate cut since the financial crisis. the first cut in a decade. if you want to look longer as that, the fifth time in 25 years where you have a federal reserve going from hiking rates we ve had nine increases since 2015. so we went from hiking to cutting. if you look back at history, it s usually not one and done. the reason the dow fell more than 300 points today is that it seems to think, the market does, we might be one and done here. here s the statement that investors are picking up on from jerome powell. we re thinking of it as a mid cycle adjustment to policy. is he s not committing the series of rate cuts that a lot of people are looking to. one of the reasons for that is that the consumer is healthy as the data is showing us.
look, all of these folks are progressives. they re some differences of opinion. do you know who the first president was that proposed universal medicare in this country? neil: lyndon johnson? no. no. harry truman. in 1945. let me tell you, truman was no socialist. he thought that working meshes and their families should have decent affordable healthcare and thought the social security system should be expanded to include healthcare. that was in 1945. there s nothing radical about it. neil: i thought you were going back to fillmore. today as you know, the federal reserve cut interest rates for the first time in ten years. the president is not satisfied with that. the fed chief powell led us down the quarter point and signals a disappointment.
more saying that i don t know what the data looks like. he said he s data dependent. we had june about 2/3s of the data miss expectations. july we had most of the data versus the last reading go negative, 70% of it. so the data allowed for it but doesn t allow for more. look at the yield curve. the inversion came out of the yield curve prior to this rate cut. we were flat this morning. we were negative one. it hasn t moved. stocks are getting hit. the inversion is gone and hasn t reinverted. this is good medium term for the market. there s one to two more cuts this year. all right. emily larson, you know this inside and out. the yield curve that you hear an analogy too. shorter term rates were catching better figures than longer term rates. that generally press as slow down or worse. that doesn t appear to be the issue right now. in washington, how is it falling out? is there a sense here that usually when you see a cut, six