Monday, September 17, 2012

ECONOMY - Federal Reserve's Latest Action

"Federal Reserve Launches Aggressive Stimulus Program to Move Economy Forward" PBS Newshour 9/13/2012

Excerpt

SUMMARY: Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke announced the Fed's third attempt to stimulate the economy by buying up mortgage-backed securities and bonds and keep borrowing rates low. Judy Woodruff talks to David Wessel, economics editor for The Wall Street Journal, to understand why the Fed chose this course of action.

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): And we turn back to the Fed's decision to shift to a more aggressive course of action.

Investors and economists alike were talking today about the Fed's intent to buy big volumes of mortgage-backed securities, but there was also heavy attention on the Fed's decision to do this and to keep borrowing rates low for an undetermined period of time, until the job market and the broader economy show themselves to be substantially healthier.

David Wessel closely watches all of this as economics editor of The Wall Street Journal. He's also the author of the books "In Fed We Trust" and his newest, "Red Ink."


Significant excerpt

DAVID WESSEL, The Wall Street Journal: What makes this somewhat different is that they say, we're not putting out a set sum of money. We're not doing this for six weeks or six months. We are going to do it until we get results.

So that open-ended promise to do whatever it takes to bring down unemployment is the most significant change in this round.

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