At one time, it was the Federal Reserve's job:
"to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McChesney_MartinAt one time, it was the Federal Reserve's job:
"to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McChesney_MartinMore, low interest rates are insufficient tools alone to achieve the goals for which the Fed deploys them, so that the conditions which motivate low interest rates are not sufficiently resolved by them to move the market to conditions where low interest rates would stop being desirable.
Monetary policy isn't magic and even with herculean interventions has limited efficacy (basically, at the moment, limited to not making things worse); the problems it addresses often require simultaneous fiscal policy actions to achieve substantial, durable changes.
> At one time, it was the Federal Reserve's job:
> "to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going"
That's still basically true. The thing is that, even with a rather full punch bowl set out, the party steadfastly refuses to get started.
Doesn't that depend on which party you're talking about?
I'm under the impression that the Fed's current policies are correlated with an asset bubble, and that's a classic "party" central banks are known to end in preference to a much worse end being forced later.
The former are also much more strongly affected by fiscal policy rather than monetary.
Yeah, I laughed at this: "But they have expressed concern that the recent stock market downturn may be a sign of weakness in the domestic economy."
The market is down because of the impending rate hike. They have to just bite the bullet and do it.
It has to be slow of course, or they'll trigger housing collapse part II. See what the chart in TFA shows? After the dot-com bust and 9/11 they dropped rates drastically to stimulate things. Then after a couple years near zero they jacked them up. What happened is a bunch of people refinanced with low rates pumping up house prices and then they pulled the rug out from under them. Now after a prolonged time of near zero rates we're in a similar position with inflated home prices.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/24/investing/stocks-markets-sel...
People are alot more concerned about trade with China than a token Fed Rate hike, sorry.
Wallstreet is terrified of the rate hike. If it is indeed the start of a ramp to 3.x percent in one year, shit is gonna fall apart again. There really is no way around it due to the inverse relationship between interest rates and housing prices. Better lending practices and stress testing will ensure the big banks can handle it this time. That doesn't help your 401k though.
Looks like we'll see whose right on this by the end of the year. I'm betting on the rate hike in October.
This is the most bogus thing I have read all day. The China argument is smoke-and-mirrors, and it doesn't hold any water. The real reason is because of the rate hike. Yeah it would be small rate hike, but the any country that has any stock in US dollars has been expecting rate hikes to gradually increase. So everyone is expecting that if the Fed raises rates, it will continue to do so for awhile. That is why the markets go down when there is talk of a rate hike. And now the jig is up, you can expect to see the dollar start to fall because the world now knows that the Fed doesn't have the galls to up the rates and any stock they have in US dollars is pretty much worthless.
Says the guy claiming that everything in US dollars is going to be worthless...
HackerNews on financial issues is like reading Yahoo Finance.
The feds job is to on occasion liven up a dieing party by making a beer run, sometimes a couple beer runs. It isn't the fed's job to drive everyone to the beer store and open a tab. Rather then deal with the reasons why the party is failing, this fed has given them the lift, bought the beer and hired some strippers. There is a fine line between fun and reckless.
Although I am worried about what a rate increase might due I have a hard time believing that a 25 basis point rate "hike" would shatter the markets.
Go negative.
The idea that they should raise rates to slow the economy so that they can turn around and lower them to stimulate it defies reason.
The rationale for increasing rates is to forestall inflation rising above the targeted level; inflation remains below targets and is expected to in the short term, so there is no reason to raise rates.
> What will they do if the market crashes and the rate is still 0?
Whatever they do won't matter much, just as it wouldn't if the market crashed with the rate target raised to 1/4 - 1/2 percent instead of 0 - 1/4 percent where it is now.
If the economy hasn't had the kind of strong, broad recovery that would support higher interest rates before the next crash, monetary policy isn't going to do much to deal with the next crash (and monetary policy isn't going to produce that kind of strong, broad recovery, either.)
The Fed as an independent central bank, while it has important responsibility, has a fairly limited role; most of the strong economic policy levers are fiscal policy that is in the hands of the political branches of government, particular Congress.