Posted on 09/17/2014 11:19:44 AM PDT by John W
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve signaled Wednesday that it plans to keep a key interest rate at a record low for a considerable period because a broad range of U.S. economic measures remain subpar.
The Fed said it planned to keep its benchmark rate near zero as long as inflation remains under control, until it sees consistent gains in wage growth, long-term unemployment and other gauges of the job market.
The central bank retained language signaling its plans to keep short-term rates low "for a considerable time" after it ends its monthly bond purchases after its next meeting in October.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
I don’t think “inflation” means what they think it means.
About what I would expect them to say before the elections.
Helps the Dems for the midterms.
Further down the article list is ground beef hitting $4/pound
I keep hearing from different sources (good or bad) that the FED is going to start inching up rates because the economic picture is getting better and better. But when the time comes to do it they don’t. They can’t and they know they can’t.
The economy is a giant house of cards. Pretty f’ed up when the FED has only one option, keep stinging it along printing money and holding interest rates at zero. Washington has to be looking for a way out or at least a smoke screen to hide a collapse. War.
I don’t think “inflation” means what they think it means.
...
Th FOMC’s primary responsibility is to make sure wages grow slower than inflation. That’s why they maliciously blame wage growth for inflation.
Someone might want to mention subpar to the Golfer-In-Chief as he uses “his economy” to try and deflect attention from his foreign policy disasters.
Well of course they are. Wait til the rates go up this whole charade will implode. Credit card rates and Mortgage rates especially.
Well, no problem there.
If some GOPe schlub manages to beat Hillary, the Fed will start hiking rates the day after Inauguration Day.
While Bloomburg and other import interests have been screaming that the Fed will raise the rate and the dollar sky high. The fake markets are driven by propaganda.
The U.S.A. doesn’t manufacture enough to keep a high international dollar, and the reckoning for artificially propping it up is going to be difficult.
....and kicks the can down the road to the next administration to fall apart on his/her watch instead of Obama’s. Funny how nothing’s Obama’s fault.
They can't because it will pop the US govt bond bubble (and the US mortgage security bubble). But keeping rates low hollows out the US economy making the inevitable crash worse.
Interest Rate 0.5% if you are lucky
Inflation 6% plus
Taxing the population by stealth.
Bailing the government debt out silently
Government borrowing our money at no cost to them
Both parties do it.
hamburger averaging $4 a pound....
“I don’t think “inflation” means what they think it means.”
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Inflation in the context of money does not mean what almost everyone thinks that it means, possibly including you even. Think of inflating a tire, in that context pumping in air to increase the pressure inside the tire is “inflation” of the tire. The fact that when you inflate a tire that is still on the car but flat or nearly so the car rises vertically is the RESULT of inflation, not actual inflation. In the money context it used to be understood that inflation is the INCREASE in the money supply, some narrowed it down to meaning increasing the money supply faster than the increase in the supply of goods and services available for purchase. An increase in the general price level is a RESULT of inflation, not inflation itself and it can result from causes other than inflation such as a drop in the supply of goods and services. What we have now appears to be a continuation of something that some people noted long ago, a rapid increase in the cost of necessities like food and energy while at the same time certain luxuries like big screen TV are dropping in price. The government tinkers with the way that things are calculated until they get the result they desire, often having little or nothing to do with reality obviously. A CPI adjustment based on necessities would show living costs increasing at several times the official figures. They also use so called “hedonistic” adjustments to claim that prices are not going up because products you buy now haver greater value because of improvements so the real price has not increased. They studiously avoid noting that things like education are rapidly dropping in value. A bachelor degree which costs four or more years of study and a huge monetary price is now worth far LESS than a public high school diploma used to be worth in the job market. Fifty years ago a high school graduate who wanted to work was often able to become a married homeowner with children before the age that young people now finish college and take a job (if they can find one) that the high school graduate of fifty years ago would have scorned.
If you find that the world you live in only vaguely resembles the one described by official government propaganda it just means that you are still bitterly clinging to reality.
The middle class can never be restored unless interest rates on savings are high enough for financially responsible people to prepare for the future. The Federal Reserve is a great scam for the elite. For us little folks, we’d be better off if borrowing and saving were local.
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