You can add Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce, to the expanding list of administration officials who are upset with the Federal Reserve and its move to raise interest rates a few months ago.
Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg TV, Ross revealed that he thinks the Fed rate hike was premature.
“I think the Fed taking a more cautious attitude on rates and reconsidering, in effect, the last rate increase that they put in, I think that’s good. I think they should reconsider. I think it’s quite likely that that last increase was, at best, premature,” Ross told the business news network.
The central bank is expected to update its rate projections for the next couple of years.
In recent months, the Eccles Building has come under pressure from the White House over the target range of 2.25 percent to 2.50 percent. It is befuddling because if the economy was as strong as Trump states, then it would be able to withstand rate hikes.
But there is an interesting part in Reuters that is confusing: “Additionally, Trump has repeatedly attacked the central bank, whose political independence is seen as key to the country’s economic stability.”
Since when was the Fed politically independent? It has coordinated with the White House since the 1930s.
The latest move from dismissing rate cuts to saying “maybe” is evidence that the Fed does work with the Oval Office.
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