Stanley Fischer knows the future

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said policy makers’ forecasts predicting four interest-rate increases in 2016 were “in the ballpark,” though China’s slowing economy and other sources of uncertainty make it difficult to predict the path of policy.

The Fed Lifts Off

“The reason we meet eight times a year is because things happen, and as they happen you want to adjust your policy,” Fischer said in an interview Wednesday on CNBC.

Fischer’s remarks come three weeks after the Fed raised interest rates for the first time in almost a decade. Policy makers said at the time they would continue to monitor real and expected progress on inflation, which remains below their 2 percent target, as they contemplate when to raise again.

After the December meeting, the Fed also released its quarterly Summary of Economic Projections, showing Federal Open Market Committee members’ forecasts for economic conditions and the path of rates. The committee’s median estimate put the benchmark federal funds rate at the end of 2016 at 1.4 percent. That implies four additional quarter-point hikes this year.

Regarding China, Fischer said "there are levels of uncertainty and they’ve risen a bit now," while downplaying the direct effect on the U.S. economy.

How does a currency banker know the future of rates?   He does not.  Fischer is certain befause the Fed deliberately drive us into the next credit cycle, they ate no way counter-cyclical.  He is not a currency banker, he is an aghent of DC tasked with being cyclical and making sure the recessions happen  as scheduled.