Word: panelized
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...shell of what it was when the influential Arkansas Democrat was its chairman from 1959 to 1974. "The dirty little secret is they don't do very much now," says a senior Administration aide. Helms sticks to a few cold war issues like Russia and China and lets the panel's younger Republicans lead hearings on other subjects. But Helms' committee still approves State Department nominees and treaties, a power he has used in a masterly way to become a de facto Foreign Minister...
...sense, last week's stiff interest-rate hike by the Federal Reserve's little known Federal Open Market Committee was a no-brainer, given the still sizzling growth of the U.S. economy. But in another sense, the panel's increase in the so-called federal-funds rate from 6% to 6.5% marked a spectacular wager on your future, with your money, by 10 unelected and largely unknown officials operating behind closed doors. By raising the rate that underpins most other borrowing costs to its highest level in nine years, the committee is hoping--make that praying--to cool the economy...
...stakes crapshoots are routine for the FOMC, a secretive body whose ability to raise or lower interest rates makes it perhaps the second most powerful group of appointees in Washington--behind only the Supreme Court. Led by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan--the one member with star wattage--the panel gathers eight times a year around a 27-ft. 11-in. black granite and mahogany table to issue diktats that are feverishly parsed on Wall Street and around the world. The members are the seven Fed governors, plus five of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents at a time...
What confronted this increasingly hawkish panel last week was a maverick economy that simply refuses to do what it's told. The Fed had raised rates a quarter of a percent--or 25 basis points, in the lingo--no fewer than five times since last June, with little tangible impact on either GDP growth or unemployment. Joblessness stood at just 3.9% in April, its lowest level in three decades. This persistent lack of idleness sent shivers up the spines of FOMC members, who fear that tight labor markets will lead to inflationary wage increases. To make matters worse, from...
...this spring the chairman reset his course, and other doves on the panel found themselves in full retreat. The tough new thinking was reinforced by the arrival of voting members like Jerry Jordan, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (Ohio). "There is [agreement] right now that the economy is growing too rapidly," Rivlin says. The moral: "If you step on the brakes a little and the car doesn't slow down, then you need to step on them a bit harder the next time...