| The Fed rate cut is finally here, writes Bloomberg's Enda Curran, but the talk of the town will be how many more trims are on the way. Plus: The Trump campaign's mastery of misinformation, and a better way to rideshare. If this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up. After a tortured buildup, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut interest rates by 50 basis points and signaled that more relief is on the way. That the Fed thinks it's brought inflation under control without having blown up the labor market and can now lower borrowing costs is a significant moment in US economic history. "This was a huge victory for Jay Powell," KPMG Chief Economist Diane Swonk told Bloomberg Television, making the point that the Fed chair succeeded in getting fellow policymakers to agree to a 50-basis-point move. How did we get here? It's easy to forget, but at the start of the year, Wall Street was betting that the Fed would be cutting by March, as inflation slowed. When that didn't happen, the bets shifted to lower interest rates by June. When that didn't happen, the focus changed to September after Powell made it clear in August that "the time has come."  Powell at his news conference Wednesday in Washington. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg The big change over the past few months has been a weaker than expected jobs market, which has clearly spooked policymakers. Although layoffs remain contained, the unemployment rate has crept up to 4.2% (from 3.4% in spring 2023) and companies are clearly hiring at a slower pace (they added the fewest jobs last month since the start of 2021). With inflation slowing, many Fed watchers were warning that the central bank was in danger of blowing a soft landing. Hence the need for policymakers to bring down borrowing costs. For all the significance of the moment, today's rate cuts won't exactly be an immediate game changer for households or business. Borrowing costs remain high compared with where they were for most of the past 15 years, which means the cost of mortgages and loans remains expensive. That will continue to act as a weight on consumer spending and business investment. Still, more important than the rate cut itself is the signal that more is ahead. That's the key variable to rev up animal spirits and to ensure the economy remains on track for a soft landing. Most of the Fed-watching world thinks it's clear that more cuts are coming, which will encourage people to buy and sell homes. Projections released by the Fed show a narrow majority, 10 of 19 officials, favors lowering rates by at least an additional half-point over its two remaining 2024 meetings. Mohamed El-Erian, Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the president of Queens' College, Cambridge, is among those who say more relief is on the way. "This is a dovish 50-basis-points cut, " he said on Bloomberg Television. And don't mention the R-word—that's the gist of the reaction from Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management: "We have a Fed that will go to historic lengths to avoid a hard landing. Recession, what recession?" Read more: Bloomberg's live blog on the rate cut and Powell's news conference | 
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