US Launching Controversial Payment System
The U.S. central bank is launching a payment system that critics view as a government attempt to control Americans’ expenditures and a trial run for a controversial digital currency.
The U.S. central bank is launching a payment system that critics view as a government attempt to control Americans’ expenditures and a trial run for a controversial digital currency.
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised interest rates by 25 basis points, issuing an 0.25% hike in line with earlier expectations in a move that signals a rate slowdown in the Fed’s fight against inflation.
American households lost about $6.8 trillion in wealth over the first three quarters of 2022 as the stock market shed more than 25% of its value, the Federal Reserve reported Friday in the government’s quarterly financial accounts.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York and major banks will launch a three-month test of a digital dollar in hopes of studying its feasibility.
U.S. interest rates rose again Wednesday in a sign that soaring inflation is hard to control in the world’s largest economy.
The US Federal Reserve is expected Wednesday to announce its fourth consecutive 0.75% interest rate hike since June, Reuters reports. Numerous economists polled by Reuters have said the Fed should not pause until inflation falls to around half its current level.
Inflation in the United States accelerated in September, with the cost of housing and other necessities intensifying pressure on households, wiping out pay gains that many have received and ensuring that the Federal Reserve will keep raising interest rates aggressively.
The average interest rate on the most popular U.S. home loan rose to its highest level since 2006 as the housing sector continued to bear the brunt of tightening financial conditions, data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) showed on Wednesday.
It’s been a tough year for investors, with global stock and bond markets erasing $46.1 trillion in market value since November 2021, according to Bank of America.
The Federal Reserve raised its target interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to a range of 3.00%-3.25% on Wednesday and signaled more large increases to come in new projections showing its policy rate rising to 4.40% by the end of this year before topping out at 4.60% in 2023 to battle continued strong inflation.
President Biden has passed 99 executive orders since becoming president and a federal budget expert has estimated that the cost to taxpayers will be upwards of $1.5 trillion, with his recent student loan forgiveness accounting for a huge portion of that amount.
Total household debt increased by $312 billion (2%) to $16.15 trillion in the second quarter of 2022, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data said in its Quarterly Report published Tuesday.
The U.S. economy unexpectedly contracted in the second quarter, with consumer spending growing at its slowest pace in two years and business spending declining, raising the risk that the economy was on the cusp of a recession.
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced a three-quarters of a percentage point rate hike, in an attempt to cool record-high inflation.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday attested that the world is in danger of falling into another global recession, the Times of Israel (TOI) reports. The IMF gave its grim view in its latest World Economic Outlook (WEO), amid surging inflation and severe economic slowdowns in the US, the Euro zone, and China.
Conflicting signs about the health of the U.S. economy have thrust the Federal Reserve into a difficult spot.
Inflation in the US hit a 40-year high in May, as America joined the UK, the Eurozone, and countries in Africa, South America, and Asia fighting massive consumer prices against a backdrop of the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Federal Reserve approved the largest hike to its benchmark interest rate since 1994 on Wednesday as officials frantically seek to tamp down the decades-high inflation hitting household budgets.
Markets are beginning to anticipate an even faster pace of interest rate hikes, and Federal Reserve officials apparently are contemplating the possibility as well.
The Commerce Department has revised its first-quarter real gross domestic estimate to show the U.S. economy contracted at an annualized rate of 1.5%, compared to its original estimate in late April of 1.4%.