The Federal Reserve took massive emergency action Sunday to try to help the economy withstand the coronavirus by slashing its benchmark interest rate to near zero and saying it would buy $700 billion in Treasury and mortgage bonds. The Fed’s surprise announcement signalled its rising concern that the viral outbreak will depress economic growth in […]
The fast-moving coronavirus isn’t just confounding health officials. It’s also bedevilling policymakers and central bankers who are struggling to assess the economic damage from an outbreak that’s reached 37 countries and territories, infected 80,000 people and killed 2,700 worldwide. They don’t know where or how fast the virus will spread. They can’t draw on clear […]
Central banks’ actions have gone too far and they’re running out of tools in their toolbox, according to Erik Weisman, chief economist at MFS Investment Management. When interest rates are pushed to zero or into negative territory, people are deciding to save more instead of spending money on which they’re not earning interest, he says. […]
Just as the outlook for the global economy had been brightening in recent months, a new threat has suddenly emerged in the form of the viral outbreak in China. That was the cautionary message that Chairman Jerome Powell delivered Wednesday after the Federal Reserve held interest rates low after its latest policy meeting. Speaking at […]
Paul Volcker, who as Federal Reserve chairman in the early 1980s elevated interest rates to historic highs and triggered a recession as the price of quashing double-digit inflation, has died, according to his office. He was 92. Volcker took charge of the Fed in August 1979, when the U.S. economy was in the grip of […]
Barber sees French conspiracy in Eurozone.