Marcus Nunes | The answer is that much more is needed, especially since lately we´ve had the Fed and the ECB/BoJ pulling in opposite directions. Some policy coordination would greatly increase their productivity.
Benjamin Cole via Historinhas | In general, the “class glass” is a poor lens for analyzing U.S. politics and macroeconomic policies. To be sure, the nation has interest-group politics in spades, and groups are often well-financed.
Today the Fed’s FOMC holds its first meeting of 2016 with 4 planned board changes. In summary, we can say that 1 hawk (hard line) will be leaving and 4 joining. This means that the balance is still in favour of the doves (soft line), but less so than in 2015.The markets will react positively if the Fed sends a clear message that it will take into account the situation of both the US and the global economy before implementing further rate hikes.
Julius Sen, Academic Director at the London School of Economics thinks that “we have a flexible model. The market knows it and plays with it, forcing looser monetary policies and tight fiscal policies with the stability pact in Europe and the ‘sequester’ in the US. Sen claims that “there will be debt reliefs in some eurozone countries.”
It’s like a curse. Every time a central bank raises interest rates, it has to retract. Sometimes it’s because the move has been precipitative. Three weeks after the Fed decided to raise rates, oil prices and the Chinese stock market tumbled in unison and Wall Street started a correction. So had the Fed been too hasty?
Benjamin Cole via Historinhas | Probably, He Is Right. Among serious economists, the words “print more money” are not used, and of course the thought is sacrilege for many. Evidently, some prefer a decade or so of 20+% unemployment (see Spain, Greece), or the perennial loss of about 10% of GDP (the United States) to the idea of printing more money.
Keith Weiner via TrumanFactor | Unless you’re living under a rock, you know that we have an administered interest rate. This means that the bureaucrats at the Federal Reserve decide what’s good for the little people. Then they impose it on us. In trying to return to freedom, many people wonder why couldn’t we let the market set the interest rate. After all, we don’t have a Corn Control Agency or a Lumber Board (pun intended). So why do we have a Federal Open Market Committee? It’s a very good question.
Analysts and markets alike are already discounting a 25 basis points rise in the Fed’s core rates this week. So investors’ reaction will depend largely on Janet Yellen’s message regarding future rate hikes. A vague gradualism no longer matches the kind of unequivocal commitment the markets are waiting for. Anything short of this could fuel general volatility and unrest.
In a few days the Fed will meet and, inevitably, will raise interest rates. It is inevitable because it would contradict its discourse if this doesn’t happen. In the short-term it is unlikely to present any problems, because the move is already discounted. But there is something worse: there is the risk that the Fed makes a mistake which it later has to rectify, as has happened in other countries. Sweden is the main example.
Fernando Barciela | The Federal Reserve’s minutes which were released last Wednesday show that a rate hike is firmly on the cards for this December. But almost everybody seems to think that – if it happens – the rate increase probably will be small, a quarter of a percentage point at most. And, also very importantly, the pace of rate increases after that hike will be gradual. Before any further decision about future hikes the Fed will want to study the consequences.