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The Fed has a message if you dig a little
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke
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TEXT OF STORY
Steve Chiotakis: The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, speaks today. He's taking questions at the Economic Club of New York. Marketplace's Jeremy Hobson has a preview.
Jeremy Hobson: Fed watchers aren't expecting major news out of today's speech.
Lyle Gramley is a senior economic advisor with Soleil Securities. He says Fed economists have already indicated that the emergency measures put in place last year aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
Lyle Gramley: The Fed still believes strongly, as I do, that inflation is not only going to stay low, but probably go still lower yet -- and that therefore it would be a mistake for the Fed to start raising interest rates.
Of course, no big news doesn't mean no news at all.
Dan Greenhaus is chief economist at Miller Tabak:
Dan Greenhaus: When they go out there and they speak, especially Ben Bernanke, they want to tell you something. You just have to sometimes dig through a lot of trash to find the diamond in the rough so to speak.
And for Greenhaus, that diamond might be an idea of just what indicators Bernanke is looking at to determine when it's time to ramp up interest rates and stop propping up various parts of the economy.
In New York, I'm Jeremy Hobson for Marketplace.
About the author
Jeremy Hobson is host of Marketplace Morning Report, where he looks at business news from a global perspective to prepare listeners for the day ahead. Follow Jeremy on Twitter @jeremyhobson
I think it's a little ridiculous that rates are so low. Isn't this only setting a psychological cl-fu when rates are raises to the astonishingly high rates of 1 or 2 percent?! After the world's money supply evaporated by 33% why shouldn't we expect more deflation? I think it would be best for the fed to announce a new program. The low interest rate program. It sets the normal rate to 3% but extends the rates back down to their current level. Slowly this plan will raise the interest rates on days that aren't followed with big news speeches or anything. And maybe we can reverse this psychological norm of free money.
