The Federal Reserve is spending $2.5 billion to renovate existing buildings for the agency. The cost overruns so far exceed $700 million in taxpayer money. Both President Trump and OMB Director Russ Vought are furious at the costs.
The $2.5bn refurbishment of the FED headquarters is at the center of focus by the White House, looking specifically at Jay Powell the central bank’s chair. Russell Vought has compared the ridiculous renovation cost to the building of the Palace of Versailles and described cost overruns as “outrageous”.
President Trump, a builder who knows the price of all things in the construction sector, takes matters into his own hands and grabs a hard hat to tour the facility that is not expected to be finished for another two years. Here are his initial remarks (prompted):
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i like the fact that PT doesn’t have to talk about you behind your back,
PT talks about you to your face! 😂😂
I would not like to be in Powell’s shoes while touring the Fed’s site.
I would like to be the one carrying someone from the WH’s clip board taking notes and putting together the flow chart and bullet points of how 2.5b (correction down the thread 3.1B) got spent on this project and the exhibits of who signed off on what.
He had his chance to make this encounter more pleasant but chose to go his own way. The President is not happy and I don’t blame him.
Well, he knows what to do about that – what the President wants for Pete’s sake.
To see the Chairman shaking his head like that next to the President in opposition of what he is saying is both disgusting and a clear sign of disrespect. He should resign in disgrace and not need to be fired. Here is the headline (it writes itself) “Fed Chairman Resigns After Public Insubordination”
Haha! Loved it when POTUS pulled out the receipt and handed it to Powell.
Kelly Ann Conway said Trump does not have to fire you. He makes you irrelevant! 😂
Oh yes.
I thought they said it is now at $3.1 Billion.
They did,
Powell tried to say that included a 3rd building……but the 3.1 figure was on the sheet Trump handed to him.
Why does the fed need 3 buildings? Plus all of the other Fed buildings around the country?
Therein lies the fun of the entire visit!!!
Well…let’s see…21,000 employees to do What???
better build “em a couple ah new buildings.
Yeah, that’s the ticket, git er done.
Why do they need 3 buildings anyway?
Powell is shifting costs around on the balance sheets of his capital project. (He removed the cost of an entire building it appears.)
I asked Grok about the cost of this project, based on the $3.1 billion figure:
Grok claims an average cost/SF is above $2000/SF
According to Grok, the most costly space is in construction below historic lawns, at apx $3000/SF. This below grade space is tunnels, parking, and programed space, primarily utility rooms & storage.
Grok calculates the cost per parking space at $1.8 million/space.
Never works to try and outsmart our President.
Powell looked at the paper and quickly pointed out that his, Presidents Trump’s, figure includes a third building from five years ago.
I do not support the fed at all, but he did have a fast recovery on that one.
That is billion with a B
$3,100,000,000
$3,100 Million
For a renovation and building. 3 buildings. What does the Fed do?
You could build an NFL stadium for $3B.
With a retractable roof
They do nothing but cause problems and print money.
Create notes out of thin air and charge interest
Why do we need the fed? The us dept of treasury can print money and charge interest and then make the money instead of having our interest go to Powell and his fellow bankers.
I find most people think the fed is part of the us government. It is NOT. It is a group of bankers.
No. It’s a group of economists and political hacks.
Steal.
Drain the wealth of the American people…and oh yeah…destroy the economy of the United States. Been workin’ on it for years; we need a new couple ah buildings.
Russ Vought and his team were on it in a interview afterwards. The expenditures on the Fed’s website, keep going up and the press just didn’t want to hear it. Keep defending Powell of course. The three men there just keep knocking them down with their own statements.
I sense someone is money laundering….
Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner! Short of selling, trading art and bearer bonds (but never cashing them because they are worth more than their face value). It is the best way!
In addition…..possible servers for ai purposes and upcoming financial tracking at a whole new scale??
(national security, dontcha know)
I’m certain President Trump had a reason for the inclusion of the third building. For example, it might have been all one budget or that third building might have renovations.
We already know Powell has trouble thinking well, so it is not clear he had a “fast recovery.” As usual, he has a way of looking at the world that benefits him and his fellow globalists.
💯
Powell reminds me of Robert Mueller with that clueless look on his face.
It is disrespectful and downright stupid to wonder if “the figure President Trump quoted is on the level so to speak.”
President Trump has been investigated thoroughly for years. He is probably the most honest person in the whole country. Yet because one little weasel shakes his head, you question President Trump? Unbelievable.
What is logical is that Powell played with numbers for his benefit. He has a track record of doing that.
All oligarchs do.
It wasn’t a recovery.
That third building was part of the original estimate, now overrun by 700 million.
From what they said, the third building was indeed part of the project.
I could have heard them incorrectly, I suppose.
Sen Scott agreed with PDJT and said 3.1/3.2billion. Sen Scott chairs the committee for this project.
Smooth move by by Powell creating a distracting straw man argument!
Rule #1 when caught red handed, create a point of contention to distract from the elephant in the room.
What difference does it make 3 or 4??? Assume it is 4. It is STILL a ridiculous amount of money by ANY standard.
That’s why he is there. Powell was chosen for it…..
You heard correctly. The media is very quiet and lack curiosity about this scam, because they know Trump is Right….again.
That is the way I heard it too.
He is a pathetic oligarch.
Period.
You are correct. Ill take Trump over congenital liars any day.
Trump is on the level. Powell never has been.
Powell does NOT work for nor care about the American people.
His job is to make money (interest) for the big bankers of the world.
That’s it!
He hates you. Look at his distain for being questioned about the tax
payer moneys being abused.
Trump was always talking about the entire project, which includes the third building. This is a cost overrun for the entire project, which includes the third building. Powells comment about the third building is just a typical weasel move to confuse people like you.
No need to be insulting to a fellow treeper.
That is what Trump was pointing out that the third building was part of the total building plan that Powel conveniently left off
they did . they did. they did say 3.1 billion. bugs bunny. powell also said he is prepared for more. he better prepare for trump.
$3.2B
And this is Fantastic. President Trump just nailed Powell with building a building that didn’t need to be built.
Powell should tell Trump (and Congress) if they balance the federal budget he will cut interest rates to 2%.
Cute. Really cute.
Not sure how you have missed it, but President Trump is trying to balance the budget. First President to try that in decades! His point to Powell is CUTTING INTEREST RATES WILL HELP!
Funny how it was well under 2% under Obama, almost at 0% actually. Did Obama balance the budget – I missed that 😉
We all KNOW why…
Remember QE, derp?
We haven’t had a true budget in a long time, the government runs on continuing resolutions…
I’ve done construction in the military; the most likely cause of this is the contractors deliberately underbidding, taking advantage of slight problems with the construction drawings and contract language by not asking for clarification during the bidding process, knowing they were going to issue change orders for them later. So things that in private sector you would clear up before signing contracts get deliberately “ignored” until well into construction.
More than likely the official acting as the construction manager at the Federal Reserve is getting major kickbacks from the contractors. It’s not anything new and happens quite often.
I was involved in an investigation of the construction manager at Sports Authority who was running the same scam for years and management knew nothing about it until they lost $100 million!
I never saw direct financial kickbacks (granted, the DoD is so far up in its members’ personal lives that something like that would be quickly flagged), but I have witnessed Civil Engineers deliberately ignore contractor malfeasance, or even facilitate it, in exchange for potential employment later on.
It’s terrible, but at the same time, our highly experience civil engineering troops cannot translate their experience to the civilian world; they don’t get regular private sector licenses. So people get stuck in the defense contracting world.
It’s a total grift but one enforced by the system.
No idea who was in charge of this though.
Agreed. Built Petro-chemical plants in a prior career. Change orders are a cash cow for a contractor! If your specs are sloppy, your scope of work is not tight, or the Project Manager is too inexperienced, they won’t likely tell you up front. They’ll gladly build it per the drawings & when it doesn’t work, they’ll charge you to remove it out & then again to build it right.
When Denver International Airport was built in the ’90s a fire station was built where a runway was planned. Even though the building was obviously going to be torn down, the wallpapering, painting, etc. weren’t stopped. The building was completed to spec, all the trades involved were paid. Then others were paid to demolish it and another was built elsewhere.
There was also trouble with the airport runoff ponds. There weren’t enough, they weren’t large enough, and weren’t built in a timely fashion. Flooding from the airport caused damage to a golf course about 20 miles away several times, resulting in additional costs. And of course the taxpayers were on the hook for it all.
Is THAT the freaky Denver Airport?
It is free money, you know, taxpayer money, not Jerome’s money.
But his friends, relatives, and connections will collect the profit for sure
ah, the “change order”….
initial quote is allegedly for what you want, but reflects what you’re going to get from the contractor.
then, when you don’t like what you’re getting, CHANGE ORDER!
which now includes the cost of what you originally wanted PLUS the mark up for the changes!
not funny SOP.
Two key issues I’ve seen stated for the cost overruns are they found more asbestos than expected and the water table was higher than anticipated. I don’t know how you get that high of cost overruns, nor understand that these things should be obvious when refurbishing an old building and digging deep underground when you are a bit over 2000ft from the tidal basin of the Potomac River and the Potomac river itself. Yes, they need to look into the people involved in funding/approving and those receiving the funds.
They’re building below grade parking, storage & utility rooms in a swamp, under historic lawns, at a cost of $3000/SF according to Grok number crunching using the $3.1 billion figure.
Average cost per parking space: $1.8 million.
The Federal Reserve is a PRIVATELY owned consortium of banks and financial institutions. Why is it receiving ANY taxpayer money? Shut it down. Shut it down. Shut it down.
Instantiation of new currency should be a transparent process. The problem, of course, is that the dollar is not the currency of the American people any more. It is the currency of the globalists. Foreigners own most US dollars.
Move the fed to alaska.
That would be another way smurkowski could brag how she brought home money from DC.
The FED is three separate, but interlocking agencies: the Board of Governors, the Open Market Committee, and the actual 12 “banks”. The banks themselves evolved over the years from the National Bank system put in place in 1864. You can “shut down” the Fed, but you still need something similar to the reserve banks to deal with inter-bank transfers. Plus you need an entity to manage the sale, interest, and redemption of Treasury debt. Then you need something like the original Comptroller of the Currency to manage national bank notes, or federal reserve notes as they exist today.
Of course there are those who would just rely on gold. They should study the economy from 1870 – 1910 and see just how great it was. The actual periods of prosperity were tied to increased gold from Alaska and Australia. Without large new discoveries the economy would be hobbled. The growth of trade made a gold-based system difficult due to the need for an exchange rate mechanism. That resulted in Bretton Woods and its subsequent ending.
Currently there is $2.8 trillion in currency issued, of which $2.3 trillion is considered “in circulation”. Studies suggest between 40-60% of that is held outside the US. Since FRNs are not interest bearing the Fed takes advantage of this by offsetting the currency liability with treasury debt assets. That results in net profit through which things like building renovations get funded.
Another $29 trillion represents treasury debt owned by the public. About $8.5 trillion of that is owned by foreigners (gov’t and private) led by Japan with a little over $1 trillion. Since interest and redemption of that debt is in FRNs it doesn’t represent a real problem, but facilitates using the “dollar” as a reserve and transaction medium.
They can and should eliminate the fed. Its already been done around the world. But it can be fatal. The bankers love money and murder…..
There is no excuse for the status quo of the banking mafia.
End
Powell looks like a worm of a guy next to Trump, the Lion.
Powell looks like an shyster weasel because that’s exactly what he is.
Nothing is too good for Powell and friends and too bad if the country goes to hell.
He is a worm. Worms hate lions and that’s why they love murder, death, war, famine, and pestilence.
Fake imposter parasites are literally blood sucking murderers
Puny.
Just watch; What ever that money Powell said they have in reserve, Trump will find out what it is and make Powell spend every dime of it to finish the job!!!!
How do you have a “reserve” with 700 million in overruns?
Fire him!
Has anyone figured out why it was necessary to do any of this construction?
Were there no bathrooms? Were the floors so uneven that their desks all slid toward the wall?
Did Powell and his crew form the construction company so they could share in all the funds?
Seriously, what is going on here?
I was wondering the same thig Chooseamerica.
Pres Trump said it was a shame the project even got started.
I heard tunnels have been added.
There will be so many tunnels under DC something is going to collapse. It is a swamp already.
Grift
Friends, connections, and relatives. All helping each other. And at our expense of course.
Sundance, this post needs updating. President Trump pulled out documentation showing the cost of the renovation project is now $3.1 billion, not just $2.5 billion. And $3.1 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars IS GREATER THSN THE COSTBOFNTHE PALACE OF VERSAILLES!
🎯
Is the President suggesting that Powell’s capital project cost reporting is a metaphor for the balance sheet of the Fed?
Powell looks like all the rest of the brain dead Democrats. Like he’s late for his nap. Wore out. No energy. No attention span. Maybe he took an Ambien 2 weeks ago huh?
First word that popped into my mind as soon as I saw Powell was “Biden.”
Mueller
Interestingly, President Trump (born June 14, 1946) looks much younger and more physically fit than Powell (born February 4, 1953)!
Trump is walking around a building site for an extended time and his feet will swell. Powell is walking with him and looks like he is ready to pass out. Probably the first time Powell has been at the site. I used to walk contractors and suppliers around our facility for 45 minutes before sitting down in the conference room. It is amazing how pliable people become when they are tired and sweaty, it kind of takes their edge off a little.
I like the way Trump manhandles the wasteful punk Powell. All on our dime. I thought the jerk shrunk back as if Trump was going to deck him, or was that defiance of the greedy banker as if to say “don’t you dare touch me”?
Jerome is not a finance/banking guy, he is an attorney.
I guess Jerome is realizing he’s not so good with money afterall.
Sorry, but Jerome Powell looks like a sad sack standing next to President Trump….get him gone.
Was thinking same. He doesn’t look well.
I love the look on Jerome Powell‘s face when President Trump hands him the message that the price just jumped from $2.7 Billion to $3 Billion..If Jerome Powell can’t handle a building renovation, why should anyone trust him to mange interest rates for the largest economy the world has ever seen?.
I don’t trust Jerome Powell to run a lemonade stand!
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Perhaps he just does what others tell him to do….
Powell has, “I know, I take the fall”, all over him.
This would be really funny if not for all the first time home buyers that are waiting for his petulant, stubborn hold on the interest rate to end. What a weasel.
I have 2 in my family waiting. Powell is worse than a weasel, he’s evil.
Meanwhile large companies like invitation homes are buying up block after block of houses and renting them out with sky high rents. This is also driving up costs.
The war against middle class America goes on.
YOU’RE FIRED!
This kind of taxpayer abuse has been going on for decades. Allowing a private corporation unlimited access with no oversight to taxpayer funds invites these self proclaimed elitist experts to consider our treasury their personal piggy bank. Powell and his ilk aren’t used to being publicly called out on their mismanagement. Audit the Federal Reserve.
With all due respect, you misspelled “abolish”.
I wonder why a building ‘needs’ a basement when it didn’t have one before? Frankly, the cost of this building is appalling. And Powell, standing next to Trump, looks like a little old man. I loved Trump’s response when asked what he’d do if the construction company was so over budget: I’d fire them!!
I thought they said the basement demolition was to provide an underground parking garage.
What an expensive proposition.
Cheaper and easier to build a separate building than essentially digging up the existing foundation of the existing building and going though exacting processes to not compromise the structural integrity of the existing building in the process.
Plus being only 2,000 feet from a tidal river.
Access to underground Tunnels and escape routes.
There is something more which doesn’t meet the eye. I’d like to know what it is. Are they also building an underground bunker for Powell and his family members plus fed employees. I did not vote for this. President Trump just shrugged his shoulders (I watched another video) and said the underground parking didn’t need to be done but has already begun so oh well. These things, like cost over runs happen. 3 billion dollars spent so Powell can enjoy the luxury is too damn much for that POS.
At a cost of $1.8million per car, according to Grok estimates.
It’s an infill addition. The basements are the foundation for the new construction.
Jerome isn’t having a good day. Drop the interests rates you old codger. Even better just quit to health and family reasons. Go Away.
Only Trump could pull this off, and get the guy he just ripped to laugh at his joke!
Reposting from the earlier article. Why are they building underground basements? Connected to tunnels…? Human trafficking immediately comes to mind for me & ultimately all connected to the entire “Epstein activities.” Then they’re way over budget that only highlights their entire inability to be overseeing all our country’s monetary system’s & policies. Huh interesting lil nuggets in there. Finally, Tim Scott along for the visit?
Timmy is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
The Federal Reserve is neither Federal nor in possession of any “reserve”.
So…Why is the taxpayer ( you and me, my friend) paying for this bankers palace?
Spit!
Why does the Fed have 22,000 employees?
https://www.mercatus.org/research/policy-briefs/federal-reserve-overstaffed-or-overworked-insights-feds-financial-statements
Let Trump International take over this space and turn it into a luxury hotel.
Theres no way a government agency needs these kind of quarters.
Dig into the Federal Reserve machinations and take our taxpayer monies back.
American taxpayers should not be on the hook for this kind of corruption.
This is priceless. Jerome is utterly and publicly humiliated.
I was just about to ask what’s with the virtue signalling when PDJT called an end to it and took off the stupid hat.
I’ve read all the comments, so far.
When I see these egregious outflows of unaccounted monies – like Biden did, especially toward the end of his Pretendency – I really think they’re still trying to further the goals of the Cloward-Piven Plan, in which not only do they fill us up with “refugees” and other third world ilk, but they overspend to the point that the United States is bankrupt.
Unless it’s just plain old grift.
Maybe it’s not taxpayer money, I don’t know. But the expenditures are clearly inflated; you have to ask why?
It has to be our money. Government produces nothing, It only takes money and it is never from its own stash.
First, if Powell didn’t ask for the latest update before their meeting, he is incompetent. Second, not being familiar with that update, he was just plain stupid to argue about it.
A proper response would have been “Well Mr President, it appears you have more pull than I do to get that update in your hands. 3 B? I would surely want to take a look at it as soon as this meeting is ended.”
I can’t even imagine why an already existing building needs renovations in the billions.
This confounds me to no end.
Is the list of improvements/demands coming from the bank of London?
Someone please tell me why so much money is needed.
Is some being laundered? Skimmed?
I’m not a builder, but I could build a great work building for hundreds of employees for a lot less, on land already paid for… is DC socking it to them for the permits?
This is a sick sum of money, even in today’s standards.
The “Federal Reserve Bank” (you know the drill: It’s not federal, has no reserve, is not a bank) has done more damage to America than anyone else other than St. Abraham Lincoln himself (who canceled the Founders’ Republic, with, unfortunately, the nearly full cooperation of We the People). It needs to be abolished, as increasing numbers are realizing and demanding. So why does it need its buildings “renovated” – for which presumably the $2.5 billion funding must be borrowed from the Fed itself, then repaid with interest by the American people (sweet deal, that)?
I did miss that because it didn’t happen! Again, nice try .
A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon the Fed has to print more money…
J
The Treasury prints the money that Congress spends. The Fed is just keeping interest rates high to ‘control inflation’ caused by Congress spending too much money. Everyone paying interest is competing with the Government who is the biggest borrower ever.
One man looks relatively happy…the other not so much…
Deploy a STRIKE TEAM for the FED!
—> What they SPENT … including on themselves.
—> What they PRINTED … including where it went
—> Where they were SELF-DEALING … with Member-Bank Connections!!!
You may try to hide things from PDJT, but if you are a banker and he is on \Your sight in a Hard Hat, walking around, lets just say you are Exposed.
The total cost to build the NEW World Trade Certer in Manhattan which is 104 stories high and 3.5 million square feet of luxury office space was $3.9 billion which is slightly more than the cost to renovation of the Federal Reserve building.
Didn’t happen. LOL 😆 🤣 😂!
Why does the federal reserve building get a 2.5 billion overhaul? It should be dismantled.
Indeed, why do they need tunnels and where do they go?
I thought they were going to dismantle the FBI building? We need a city planner to organize the grift.
So they want our taxpayer dollars but we are sure what they do and there’s not public oversight. Great gig if you can get it.
Powell looks like he wants to dig a hole and pull the ground in over him.
Another $7B for a third building that was built!!!!! Makes my old ID spread sheets look like Chicken crap!
that reaction, shaking his head, reading the facts. interest rate cut tomorrow. or the news this arse jumped off a bridge.
Jerome Powell is a weasel. He looks like one. He talks like one. He is one. I doubt he’s ever earned an honest dollar in his life. Bankers, Lawyers, Politicians – put them all in a sack and toss them overboard.
Gypsies, tramps and thieves…
Are you mistaking the bathroom mirror for your TV again?
Powell was quaking in his boots. Trump’s command of a room is astounding. He put this little weasel in his place by being smart, confident and truthful. Trump no longer plays games. He has the truth and God behind him.
Love back slap President Trump gives Powell ….he did the same to Carney. A cat playing w a mouse he knows he is going to eat when he’s done playing.
🚨 911, the Trump White House just m*rdered the Democrat Party.
HAHAHHAHAHA HOLY SHLIT
@TheDemocrats just deleted the chart they posted after staffers realized that the data implicates them for inflation
ROFLOL!!!! Teehee!
The Dems lay down the rakes and end up stepping on them themselves. Keep the own goals and unforced errors coming.
What I would give to audit those books… that would be so yummy
Powell was the most uncomfortable man in the world. A hundred years ago they call that look “shell shocked”. Thirty years ago that look was “prozac nation”. His body and mind was in such shock that he was struggling to stay alive until President Trump got back in the beast and drove off.
Trump has his justification to fire Powell, gross mismanagement of government funds.