The latest US interest rate cut reveals a central bank attempting to steer an economy through dense uncertainty, guided more by instinct than data. With the government shutdown now stretching close to a month, crucial employment indicators have gone dark, leaving policymakers at the Federal Reserve without their usual instruments. Yet, faced with mounting signs of a softer labour market, they chose to act rather than wait – trimming the key rate by another quarter point to a three-year low.

The decision signals that the Fed now sees employment weakness as a more immediate threat than inflation, which, while still above the 2 per cent target, appears contained outside tariff-driven sectors. The US central bank’s emphasis on job preservation over price stability marks a cautious but deliberate shift ~ an acknowledgment that economic confidence is ebbing faster than consumer prices are rising. Fed chair Jerome Powell’s comment that the labour........

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