Word: feds
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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With the economy in the U.S. "contracting significantly" in the fourth quarter, as San Francisco Fed president Janet Yellen recently put it, an issue that was practically unthinkable three months ago is now, for the Fed, front and center: the possibility of the U.S. entering a phase of deflation, or protracted declines in the general price level. In its statement accompanying the most recent interest-rate cut, the Fed said, "In light of the declines in the prices of energy and other commodities and weaker prospects for economic activity, [the Fed] expects inflation to moderate...
That's the optimistic view - and, for now, the dominant view of the Fed, most economists believe. But lurking not far from the surface of economic policymakers' deliberations these days is the dreaded d word: deflation. "Sure, we're very cognizant of it," one source familiar with Fed's thinking on the matter told TIME this week. "We don't think we're there yet, but we're very aware of the possibility." So is Wall Street. At Merrill Lynch, chief investment strategist Richard Bernstein issued a report within hours of Barack Obama's election, listing three developments for investors...
...Some economists - for now a minority, to be sure - believe the U.S. is at serious risk of a deflationary spiral, even if just a quarter ago, inflation was above the Fed's comfort zone of 2% to 3%. "Compared to Japan's problem a decade ago, this crisis is unfolding much faster and spreading wider due to financial globalization," says Shanghai-based independent economist Andy Xie. A financial system unable or unwilling to lend, a tapped out U.S. consumer, and business now retrenching - and laying people off - all are a formula for possible deflation. What's so wrong with declining...
...good news is that in the U.S. now, as Richard Berner, chief U.S. economist for Morgan Stanley, writes, "The ultimate bastion of defense against deflation is a Fed committed to avoid it at all costs." And that's what we have. Study of the Japanese experience became something of a cottage industry for Fed researchers over the past eight years, and the Fed has responded accordingly: lending directly to banks, backstopping the commercial-paper market (which companies use to raise short-term money), trying to bring yields on both long- and short-term maturities down. Further, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke...
...continuing to push, Klein came off as merely pulling the Obama wagon toward the presidential finish line. Please, Mr. Klein, we finally have in Obama the grownup we've been missing for the past eight years. Question him like one! My stomach simply can't take being force-fed any more leadership that is, shall we say, half-baked. Kelly McLaughlin, New Haven, Conn...