Archive for the ‘Measures’ tag
Translating The Federal Reserve’s Announcement Into English (August 5, 2008)
For the second consecutive meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee left the Fed Funds Rate unchanged at 2.000 percent.
The key comment — which also appeared in its June statement — is below:
Over time, the substantial easing of monetary policy, combined with ongoing measures to foster market liquidity, should help to promote moderate economic growth.
Translated, it reads:
Rate and policy changes we made until this point have yet to work their way through the economy, but when they do, we expect them to right the economic ship.
In other words, the Fed will likely stay on pause through its September 16 meeting unless something freaky happens. The Fool in the Shower, by the way, is one such freak.
Source
Parsing the Fed Statement
The Wall Street Journal Online
August 5, 2008
http://online.wsj.com/internal/mdc/info-fedparse0808.html
Scotiabank Says Measures Will Not Prevent U.S. Economic Slowdown
According to Scotiabank’s Global Outlook released
Monday, sharp monetary policy easing, a generous fiscal stimulus package
and massive liquidity injections are not sufficient to ward off a
deterioration in U.S. economic conditions as the subprime crisis
continues to take its toll on the economy and government
spending soars to unprecedented levels.
U.S. Housing Market Bottom Not Yet in Sight, Say Economists
“U.S. housing starts have left no doubt that the housing
crunch is still in full swing,” said Dimitry Fleming at ING
Wholesale Banking. “Home builders have now cut production 60%
since the peak early 2006, but despite these drastic measures
the overhang - as measured by the months of available supply - is still
enormous and is even approaching the highs of the early `80s crash.”