Good ole’ Jerome and Co. at the Fed seems hell bent at driving the US Economy into a Recession….
The Federal Reserve appears likely to raise its key interest rate next week, with minutes from the central bank’s most recent meeting showing some officials wanted to raise rates last month.
While the Fed’s rate-setting body ultimately skipped hiking rates in June, minutes of the last meeting show that some officials pushed to raise rates by one-quarter of their percentage points, or said they “could have supported such a proposal,” according to the minutes.
In the end, the 11 voting members of the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee agreed unanimously to pause on hiking rates at the June 13-14 meeting. But they signaled that they might raise rates twice more this year, beginning as soon as this month.
In Fed parlance, “some” is less than “most” or “many,” evidence that the support for another rate hike was a minority view. And some who held that view were likely unable to vote at the meeting; the 18 members of the Fed’s policymaking committee vote on a rotating basis.
Though last month’s vote to keep rates unchanged was unanimous, it is relatively uncommon for the central bank to stipulate in the minutes of Fed meetings that some officials had disagreed with the committee’s decision. That makes it more likely the committee will raise rates this month, noted Ryan Sweet, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics….