The US Federal Reserve is embarked on a campaign to shrink its nearly $9 balance sheet at the same time as it raises interest rates. The goal is to tame America’s white hot inflation. But the Fed’s dramatic action is fraught with serious challenges. As DICK BOVE explains in this episode, the Fed is unloading securities in this new era of rising interest rates, securities purchased earlier in an ultra-low rate environment that juiced the American economy. The Fed is now facing negative equity since it will sell securities at a loss. “The Fed has done a horrible job in the construction of its balance sheet,” says BOVE, chief financial strategist at Odeon Capital Group.

In this wide-ranging CONVERSATION, MAT VAN ALYSTNE, Odeon co-founder and managing partner, reminds the panel of what one former Federal chair is quoted as once saying, “98 percent of monetary policy is talk and 2 percent action.” VAN ALYSTYNE wonders aloud if Jay Powell, the current Fed chair, is “just talking a big game” in tackling America’s inflation and rising prices. BOVE presents Odeon's indexes of prices from currencies to energy and food.

Joined by host JOHN AIDAN BYRNE, this episode will look at the evidence of China in a weaker economic state with a tour de force also across a range of today’s newsmakers, from the sad and shocking war in Ukraine to hopes for a coming revival of American manufacturing and the culture wars at Disney.