HERZLIYA, Israel—Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said Monday the central bank expects to follow a “gradual and relatively slow” trajectory of short-term interest-rate increases over the next three to four years to bring borrowing costs back to “normal” levels.
Mr. Fischer said observers focus too much on when The Fed will start raising its benchmark short-term rate from near zero, and instead should think more about where interest rates are headed over time. He said Fed economists expect the rate will reach from 3.25% to 4% in three to four years.
“There is so much importance given to the first move. But I think it’s misleading,” said Mr. Fischer in a lecture at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, a college in a suburb outside Tel Aviv.
Mr. Fischer, who served as chief of Israel’s central bank for eight years before becoming the No. 2 U.S. central banker, said the coming Fed rate increases “will be a gradual process.”
He said it would not be like the relatively rapid and predictable path of Fed rate increases from 2004 to 2006, when the benchmark rate rose by 0.25 percentage point at each of 11 consecutive monetary policy meetings.
That is an impossibility. That means interest costs will grow by about 18% per year for four years, doubling the interest costs in DC when the ten year is 5.25%. A Republican Congress cannot even budget anything close to that.
No comments:
Post a Comment