Gold Finance reported that Nick Timiraos, the "Fed's mouthpiece," recently wrote that the Fed voted to lower interest rates by 0.5 percentage points today. This is the first rate cut since 2020 and represents a bolder approach. Powell's decision to cut rates by a larger margin than most analysts had predicted a few days ago has ushered the Fed into a new phase of fighting inflation: the Fed is now trying to prevent previous rate hikes from further weakening the US labor market. Powell said in a press conference, "We are committed to maintaining the strength of our economy." "This decision reflects our growing confidence that by appropriately adjusting our policy stance, we can maintain the strength of the labor market." While some Fed officials argued in recent weeks that the economy was not yet weak enough to warrant a 50-basis-point rate cut, others concluded that the cooling of the labor market this summer justified a further rate cut as the Fed was effectively playing catch-up.