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PODCAST: The dual mandate

The Fed grapples with balancing interest rates and a shrinking unemployment rate.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen can expect questions about interest rates and unemployment when the Fed wraps up its two-day meeting. The Fed had promised to keep interest rates near zero, at least until unemployment hit 6.5 percent. Unemployment is currently at 6.7 percent and dropping (and the Fed has said it will likely look at other factors, too). 

Yellen is known as a proponent of transparency – but she’s expected to say as little as possible  about what those other factors might be. 

Plus, April 8 is the last day that Microsoft will offer technical support for its 12 year-old operating system, Windows XP. Much of that support means fixing bugs. So after that date, any computer running XP will be considerably more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. But who is still using Microsoft XP? Lots of us apparently: 20 percent of computers worldwide use XP. It’s the second most popular operating system behind Windows 7.

 

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