By picking Jerome Powell to stay on as chair of the powerful Federal Reserve, President Joe Biden is trying to navigate hazardous crosscurrents between economic and political forces.
In a second term, to begin in February, Jerome Powell faces a difficult and high-risk balancing act: Inflation has reached a three-decade high, causing hardships for millions of families, clouding the recovery and undercutting the Fed’s mandate to keep prices stable.
Their opposition comes as President Joe Biden is expected to announce within days whom he will choose for the nation’s most powerful economic position.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Fed was sticking by its bedrock economic forecast. Yet, the nation’s leading economic figure acknowledged that it isn’t at all clear when or even whether things will play out the way he and other Fed officials hope.
The Fed’s likely decision this week to taper its bond purchases comes as high inflation is bedeviling the U.S. economy for much longer than Federal Reserve Chair Powell and many other officials initially expected.
The Federal Reserve announced Thursday that its policymakers and senior staff would be barred from investing in individual stocks and bonds.
The Financial Stability Oversight Council, which is headed by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and includes Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, acknowledged in a report that climate change is a serious economic threat.
In its latest survey of business conditions around the nation, the Fed said a majority of its 12 regions viewed consumer spending, the main driving force for the economy, as remaining positive despite the various speed bumps.
Such a move would mark the Fed’s first step back from the extraordinary efforts it has made to stimulate the economy in the wake of the pandemic.
Each country that signed the deal must pass legislation to enact the measure, which is aimed at limiting corporations’ ability to lower their tax bills by shifting profits to the lowest-tax jurisdictions globally.
The Federal Reserve’s Office of the Inspector General will investigate “whether trading activity by certain senior officials was in compliance with both the relevant ethics rules and the law,” the Fed said Monday.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday stood behind the ultra-low interest rate policies he has pursued since the pandemic decimated the economy more than 18 months ago. But he acknowledged inflation has stayed higher for longer than he expected.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that the unprecedented process of reopening the economy after the COVID shutdowns has resulted in a number of problems that could continue in coming months.
The Fed also said it will likely begin slowing the pace of its monthly bond purchases “soon” if the economy keeps improving. The bond purchases have been intended to lower longer-term loan rates to encourage borrowing and spending.
The Federal Reserve is reviewing the ethics policies that govern the financial holdings and activities of its senior officials in the wake of recent disclosures that two regional Fed presidents engaged in extensive trading last year.
In a speech being given virtually to an annual gathering of central bankers, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell stressed that the beginning of tapering does not signal any plan to start raising the Fed’s benchmark short-term rate.
The uncertainties raised by the delta variant make it likelier that the Fed will announce a tapering in November or later, economists said, rather than in September. That would allow Fed officials to consider two additional months of data on inflation and jobs to gauge the delta variant’s impact.
The Federal Reserve is edging toward an announcement that it will begin paring the pace of its Treasury and mortgage bond buying, which now amounts to $120 billion a month.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday that the U.S. economy has been permanently changed by the COVID pandemic and it is important that the central bank adapt to those changes.
Federal Reserve official James Bullard’s comments echo other recent calls from inside and outside the Fed that the central bank should start dialing back its ultra-low interest rate policies.
