Trusting The Fed 's Judgement

According to staff review of the financial situation for January 28-29, there are developments in emerging market economies. The Fed will continue to support Monetary economic situations over the intermeeting period, they were critically affected by Federal Reserve correspondences, to some degree better-than-anticipated economic information discharges, and advancements in developing market economies. On net, monetary conditions in the United States stayed strong of development in economic action and work: Equity costs is wrinkled a bit, longer-term investment rates declined, and the

QE3 began in September of 2012 with a gross domestic product increasing by 4.5%, which is an impressive gain over the previous years of very little growth, GDP currently, has had a relatively steady increase over each quarter amounting to 3.9% for the most recent data. However, while GDP is of serious concern, inflation and unemployment rates have not been so easily persuaded. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics (1), in September 2013 unemployment was in a downswing but still resided at 7.2%, much higher than the Feds target rate of 5%. Currently unemployment is at 5.8% which is within the realm of the Fed’s goal. Inflation has

Eric Rosengren, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and John Williams, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, have both been known as “doves” in their individual monetary policy opinions and votes over the last five years. Since the summer of 2015, there has been a notable change in Rosengren’s rhetoric in the pursuit of normalization to the point where Rosengren is now actively suggesting an increase in interest rates in the very near future in order to promote growth in the economy, and as of the FOMC meeting on September 21st, 2016, was one of three dissenting votes (out of ten) for keeping rates low. Rosengren supports his new change of face with factors that will be discussed at length in this paper such as the pace of growth, the up-sides to higher rates, and the danger lurking in a prolonged low-rate economy. In similar (but not identical) fashion, John Williams is turning to the belief that rate hikes will be necessary sooner, rather than later if the Fed wishes to continue to spur growth in the United States economy, as opposed to letting the economy overheat into recession. Williams supports this point with evidence similar to Rosengren involving the pace of growth, the upside to higher rates, and the danger lurking in a prolonged low-rate economy. Eric Rosengren’s recent flip provides an interesting vantage point on both camps in the Federal Reserve. By comparing and contrasting the rhetoric of Rosengren (a former dove) and Williams

On February 26, 2013, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke appeared in front of the US Senate to describe and calm down concerns about the Fed’s economic stimulus campaign. The unemployment rate is still high and the crash of the housing market

The Federal Reserve System is the most powerful institution in the United States economy. Functioning as the central bank of the United States, acting as a regulator, the lender of last resort, and setting the nation’s monetary policy via the Federal Open Market Committee, there is no segment of the American economy unaffected by the Federal Reserve [endnoteRef:1]. This power becomes even more substantial in times of “unusual and exigent circumstances,” as Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act gives authority to the Board of Governors to act unilaterally in lending and market making operations during financial crisis[endnoteRef:2]. As illustrated by their decision making in the aftermath of the 2007-2008 Great Recession,

The discussion of whether the Federal Reserve should raise the federal funds rate is a highly contentious one. Members of the Federal Reserve (“Fed”) and academic economists disagree about what constitutes appropriate future macroeconomic policy for the Unites States. In the past, the Fed had been able to raise rates when the unemployment rate was under 5% and inflation was at a target of 2%. Enigmatically, since the Great Recession and despite a strengthening economy, year-over-year total inflation since 2008 has averaged only 1.4%—as measured by the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (“PCE”). Today, PCE inflation is at 1-1.5% and has continuously undershot the Fed’s inflation target of 2% three years in a row. (Evan 2015) In the six years since the bottom of the Great Recession the U.S. economy has made great strides in lowering the published unemployment rate from about 10% back down to about 5.5%. In light of this data, certain individuals believe that the Federal Reserve should move to increase the federal funds rate in 2015 because unemployment is near 5% and inflation should bounce back on its own (Derby 2015). However, this recommendation is misguided.

Bernanke’s comment that the Fed would maintain “highly accommodative monetary policy for the foreseeable future” sparked the mood swing on Wall Street. As noted on above, this is appropriate, but what the market may be missing is what “highly accommodative” policy actually means, at least to the Federal Reserve. It is not unreasonable to think that holding interest rates near zero for the next couple of years is “accommodative”. It most certainly is. Maintaining bond purchases is also obviously accommodative policy, but there could be a subtlety in Bernanke’s likely approach. If in coming months interest rates are held at zero (which is as certain as anyone can be on any policy setting), yet the Fed starts to scale back its $85 billion bond purchases a month to $75 billion, then $50 billion and so on, there is still no question that policy is still accommodative, but a little less than it was before.

In the late 2007, early 2008 the United States and the world was hit with the most serious economic downturn since The Great Depression in 1929. During this time the Federal Reserve played a huge role in assuring that it would not turn into the second Great Depression. In this paper, we will be discussing what the Federal Reserve did during this time including a discussion of our nation’s three main economic goals which are GDP, employment, and inflation. My goal is to describe the historic monetary and fiscal policy efforts undertaken by the U.S. Government and Federal Reserve including both the traditional and non-traditional measures to ease credit markers and stimulate the economy.

To begin, The Federal Reserve System opted to raise interest rates that were placed near zero years ago in order to aid the economy’s growth and prevent inflation from exceeding the target number. Several factors including: the five percent drop in the unemployment rate, and the increase in wages, and the outlook on future inflation contributed to the Federal Reserve’s decision take this action. However, the increase in interest rates in December has generated mixed results, and it appeared the Federal Reserve would announce the interest rates were going to increase again. Instead, Janet Yellen, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, announced that there were better days ahead for the economy, and a slow and careful approach to future increases in the interest rate would serve the economy best, ensuring the growth is maintained. Although the interest rates remained the same early in 2016, they are expected to increase during the June meeting of the Federal Reserve. but cited the economy needed low interest rates in order for the economy to maintain growth. I find it interesting that Yellen continues to worry about inflation growing in the coming years, although the interest rate increase should keep inflation in check through its effect of the economic markets. Yellen sites that she would like the inflation to become and stay at 2 percent each year. However, the current inflation rate is .9 percent, so the the economy is a long way from achieving its target inflation rate

The FOMC was created to control the supply of money, the members consist of the board of governors all together are 12 members, Seven members and five reserve bank presidents. The Federal Reserve raised the objective range for the government funds rate, the expansion left the target range higher. Unemployment was a major topic that was discussed during the meeting many times. Unemployment predictions stayed at 4.5% for the next three years. Government officials recognized a further fortifying in labor market conditions by bringing down their long run estimate of unemployment. The median of projections for the unemployment rate in the final quarter of 2017 was 4.5 percent, unaltered from December and 0.2 percentage point below the median evaluation. Survey based measures of long term inflation expectations remained largely stable over the past few months, market based measures of inflation were viewed as being low. The FOMC prediction for consumer price inflation was untouched for 2017. The members kept on anticipating that inflation would increase slowly over this period, as food and energy costs, alongside the costs of non-energy imports, were relied upon to begin steadily rising this year.

On September 18, 2013 the Federal Reserve reaffirmed its view that a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy will remain appropriate for a considerable time after the asset purchase program ends and the economic recovery strengthens. In addition, the committee agreed to continue its monthly $85 billion purchase of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities as long as the unemployment rate remains above 6.5 percent. Inflation between one and two years ahead is projected to be no more than a half percentage point above the Committee's 2 percent longer-run goal and longer-term inflation expectations continue to be well anchored .

Our economy is a machine that is ran by humans. A machine can only be as good as the person who makes it. This makes our economy susceptible to human error. A couple years ago the United States faced one of the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, which was the Great Recession. The Great Recession was a severe economic downturn that occurred in 2008 following the burst of the housing market. The government tried passing bills to see if anything would help it from becoming another Great Depression. Trying to aid the government was the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve went through a couple strategies in order to help the economy recover. The Federal Reserve provided three major strategies to start moving the economy in a better direction. The first strategy was primarily focused on the central bank’s role of the lender of last resort. The second strategy was meant to provide provision of liquidity directly to borrowers and investors in key credit markets. The last strategy was for the Federal Reserve to expand its open market operations to support the credit markets still working, as well as trying to push long term interest rates down. Since time has passed on since the Great Recession it has been a long road. In this essay we will take a time to reflect on these strategies to see how they helped.

As interest rates bottomed out quickly after the onset of the recession, the Federal Reserve could no longer stimulate the economy with traditional and time-tested techniques. The controversial and unconventional method chosen by the Federal Reserve, and other central banks around the world, is known as “quantitative easing” (QE). QE functions by injecting large amounts of reserve capital into commercial banks with the hope that those banks will then be willing to lend the money at affordable interest rates. Ideally, the addition to economic activity affected by the influx of capital to banks should keep the value of the dollar relatively low, avoiding deflation and encouraging foreign investment by those wishing to take advantage of an affordable dollar. The cheaper dollar should also make American exports look more attractive to potential consumers in other countries. If interest rates stay low, and banks begin lending again, consumer and investor confidence should hopefully rise, leading to more spending and thus, economic growth.

We are about to enter a potentially critical week for US monetary policy with the onset of the 16-17 September Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. It is important because markets could potentially learn much more about the Fed’s policy reaction function. Since her tenure began, Fed Chair Yellen repeatedly stressed the importance of data dependency in terms of formulating policy. The problem is, however, that the FOMC never explicitly stated which indicators had a higher weighting in the decision-making process. Thus, data dependency has failed to yield the policy clarity so yearned for by financial markets. The case for a 25 basis points rise in the federal funds target is based on the premise

The European Central Bank (ECB) was the last to embrace quantitative easing, partly due to political constraints. By contrast, the Fed, under former Chairman Bernanke, did not face the same headwind and was prepared invoke three tranches of asset purchases due to elevated economic uncertainty. How times have changed! ECB President Draghi last week announced that an expanded round of quantitative easing could be invoked beyond September 2016 if financial markets sold off further and threatened to undermine the respective outlooks for economic growth and inflation. Forecasts for real GDP growth and consumer prices have already been reduced by the ECB and downside risks have been attached to these estimates. It appears, therefore, that the ECB under President Draghi is more prepared to behave like the Fed under former Chairman Bernanke. The reaction of Eurozone equity markets and the single currency to the ECB President’s announcement was textbook in nature. It appears that the strengthening of the euro versus the dollar in late-August did not please the ECB: President Draghi warned that negative consumer price inflation was likely in the latter months of 2015. Continued appreciation of the euro would only have intensified deflationary pressure. It appears, therefore, that the currency is once again being used as a safety valve. By contrast, the undershooting of US inflation and dollar strength does not appear to have deterred at