Monday, February 11, 2013

Will the Fed ever raise interest rates?

Will the Fed ever raise interest rates?

  There is talk that the fed will continue to sustain "easing" past it's current actions. The Federal Open Market Committee is discussing bringing the bond buying program to an end. Almost immediately the assumption would be that the next step is to raise interest rates, however the Federal Reserve indicated that they wouldn't necessarily raise interest rates right away. They claim they will keep them low, as is 0% to .25% through 2014 as long as inflation for the next 1-2 years is not predicted to rise by more than 2.5 percent.
  The problem is that raising rates before the economy recovers could stifle economic growth, and not raising rates at the sign of inflation could lead to hyper inflation. Some folks say that there is no way the federal reserve can raise rates in this environment and not for the foreseeable future. It's possible that people have become addicted to debt, and cheap debt as well.
   Higher interest rates help those who save money, as banks pay higher yields to account holders when they make more on inter bank loans, and right now they are making practically nothing.
  I predict that as the housing market continues to recover, and as the job market continues to slowly recover over the next 36 months, that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by mid 2014 by at least half a percentage point.

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