While it was certainly gratifying to know that the Federal Reserve may, finally, be ready to raise interest rates and normalize monetary policy before the end of the year, its reason for doing so, elucidated after last week’s FOMC meeting and Janet Yellen’s press conference left me shaking my head. To put it in economic terms, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense, given the Fed’s past behavior.
As we all know by now, the Fed, as widely expected, left interest rates unchanged last week, but hinted strongly for the umpteenth time that it’s almost ready to raise rates, just not right now.
“The committee judges that the case for an increase in the federal funds rate has strengthened but decided, for the time being, to wait for further evidence of continued progress toward its objectives,” the post-meeting announcement said.
Yet, at the same time, the Fed lowered its estimate for U.S. economic growth this year to 1.8% from its June forecast of 2.0%, which is also its new long-term view of the economy. That’s certainly justified by the reports we’ve been getting the last several weeks, which show the economy slowing, not gaining strength, in the second half.
So why would the Fed say that the case for raising rates had “strengthened” even as it downgraded its view of the economy and most recent reports back that up? Continue reading "Is Data Dependency Dead At The Fed?"
