US Central Bank Could Again Trim Its Economic Support
Policy makers at the U.S. central bank are meeting in Washington, with analysts predicting they will continue to trim their direct support of the world's largest economy.
The Federal Reserve is set to release its assessment of the U.S. economy later Wednesday after completing a two-day meeting. It is the last such policy meeting headed by outgoing chairman Ben Bernanke as his eight-year tenure ends. Fed vice chair Janet Yellen is becoming the first woman to head the century-old agency on Saturday.
For more than a year, the central bank bought $85 billion worth of securities every month to pump money into the American economy as it steadily, but unevenly recovered from the 2008 recession.
With the U.S. economy improving, the Fed cut the purchases to $75 billion this month. Economists in the U.S. are predicting the central bank will further trim the purchases to $65 billion in February before ending them altogether in late 2014, if the economy continues to advance.
The cutback in the direct support for the U.S. economy has roiled markets and currencies in emerging economies throughout January. Growth had advanced in the emerging economies during the depths of the world downturn.
But now, investors fear that as the Fed eases off its securities purchases, and long-term interest rates edge higher in the U.S., billions of dollars of investment money will be withdrawn from the emerging economies. Instead, the money could be invested in the U.S. and other advanced economies.
One barometer Fed policy makers watch is the U.S. jobless rate. It fell in December to 6.7 percent, a five-year low.
But much of the decline has been the result of discouraged long-term unemployed workers ending their search for new jobs, and thus are not counted in the jobless figure. U.S. employers had been adding about 200,000 new jobs a month through the latter half of 2013, but just 74,000 in December.
fuente: La Voz de América, http://www.voanews.com/content/us-central-bank-could-again-trim-its-economic-support/1840030.html
The Federal Reserve is set to release its assessment of the U.S. economy later Wednesday after completing a two-day meeting. It is the last such policy meeting headed by outgoing chairman Ben Bernanke as his eight-year tenure ends. Fed vice chair Janet Yellen is becoming the first woman to head the century-old agency on Saturday.
For more than a year, the central bank bought $85 billion worth of securities every month to pump money into the American economy as it steadily, but unevenly recovered from the 2008 recession.
With the U.S. economy improving, the Fed cut the purchases to $75 billion this month. Economists in the U.S. are predicting the central bank will further trim the purchases to $65 billion in February before ending them altogether in late 2014, if the economy continues to advance.
The cutback in the direct support for the U.S. economy has roiled markets and currencies in emerging economies throughout January. Growth had advanced in the emerging economies during the depths of the world downturn.
But now, investors fear that as the Fed eases off its securities purchases, and long-term interest rates edge higher in the U.S., billions of dollars of investment money will be withdrawn from the emerging economies. Instead, the money could be invested in the U.S. and other advanced economies.
One barometer Fed policy makers watch is the U.S. jobless rate. It fell in December to 6.7 percent, a five-year low.
But much of the decline has been the result of discouraged long-term unemployed workers ending their search for new jobs, and thus are not counted in the jobless figure. U.S. employers had been adding about 200,000 new jobs a month through the latter half of 2013, but just 74,000 in December.
fuente: La Voz de América, http://www.voanews.com/content/us-central-bank-could-again-trim-its-economic-support/1840030.html
Comentarios