Tag Archives: Federal Reserve

On the side of the argument for exercising patience, Williams said there are two main concerns: One, the constraint of the “zero lower bound,” which is to say rates can’t go any lower than zero and there will not be room to lower the rates if there is another economic downturn or if inflation drops further; and two, the inflation has been “stubbornly” below the Fed’s target rate of 2 percent for almost three and a half years.

“As disappointing as last month’s jobs report was, this one more than makes up for it,” said Curt Long, Chief Economist of the National Associations of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU). “Job gains surged past analysts’ expectations, while the unemployment rate dropped even as 300,000 workers joined the labor force. Meanwhile, year-over-year wage growth hit its highest mark since mid-2009. Barring catastrophe, everything looks set for the Fed to raise rates in December.”

Interest rates nearly took center stage in this banking testimony as Chair Yellen noted that the domestic economy is “pretty strong” and the “gradual rise in rates should not derail the housing market. Employment is going up, income is going up, and If the labor market improves, inflation will move up. December sounds incrementally more likely, but hinges on jobs reports.”

While waiting for the Fed to raise rates, banks will likely place "additional focus on cost controls to improve operating efficiencies and extend balance sheet duration" to reduce margin compression, according to a recent report from Fitch Ratings. Bank margins have fallen to 3.02 percent as of the first quarter of 2015, the lowest average since 1984, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said.

On the downside, government officials saw net exports fall soft, job gains slow, and the unemployment rate held steady. In addition, inflation remains under the Committee's objective of 2 percent, reflecting falling energy prices and prices of non-energy imports.

In New Jersey, 16.2 percent of consumers have seriously delinquent debt (90 days or more overdue) or debt that was in third-party collections, compared with the national rate of 20 percent for the reporting period. New York and Connecticut also reported overall consumer distress rates (14.8 percent and 14.9 percent respectively) lower than the national rate.

The reporting period for the latest Beige Book found residential housing markets have generally improved since the last report with increasing home prices and sales volumes driving the improved housing markets.

Bernanke, who headed the U.S. central bank from 2006 to 2014, told the BBC that the Department of Justice should have attempted to hold individuals accountable for the crisis instead of companies because it was the decisions of individuals, and not the companies themselves, that brought on the crisis.

Ask the Economist is an ongoing series in which DS News talks with an economist about the most pressing issues facing the nation's housing industry and the economy. This installment features Rodney Ramcharan, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Research Director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate.

The Dodd-Frank Act still allows the Fed some of the same emergency lending programs used in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis despite the legislation's stated purpose of ending such bailouts, according to a study by Norbert J. Michel, Research Fellow in Financial Regulations, the Institute for Economic Freedom and Opportunity at the Heritage Foundation.