<story><title>Federal Reserve to increase interest rates by 50 basis points</title><url>https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20221214a.htm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bmitc</author><text>Has the Federal Reserve always been this powerful and active? Over the past few years, it seems that they have been molding the economy to their will. Are there any detailed retrospectives on this in terms of it being good or not? From my naive perspective, it seems like a lot of meddling, and it isn&amp;#x27;t clear if such frequent changes are required. If they are required, I suppose that bothers me just as much since it implies a fragile economic system.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>evdubs</author><text>This is just the Fed setting interest rates to be in line with the Taylor Rule [1]. As some of your replies have noted, they&amp;#x27;re aggressive both because of a delayed response to recent inflation as well as a sharp rise in inflation since the COVID lockdowns ended.&lt;p&gt;Note that the Fed has two mandates: maximum employment and price stability. They raise rates in an attempt to reduce inflation and try to reach price stability. Their tools for maximizing employment tend to be much more indirect.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.atlantafed.org&amp;#x2F;cqer&amp;#x2F;research&amp;#x2F;taylor-rule&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.atlantafed.org&amp;#x2F;cqer&amp;#x2F;research&amp;#x2F;taylor-rule&lt;/a&gt; &amp;#x2F; Create Your Calculation &amp;#x2F; Chart &amp;#x2F; Compare &amp;quot;Alternative 3&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Actual Fed Funds Rate&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>Federal Reserve to increase interest rates by 50 basis points</title><url>https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20221214a.htm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bmitc</author><text>Has the Federal Reserve always been this powerful and active? Over the past few years, it seems that they have been molding the economy to their will. Are there any detailed retrospectives on this in terms of it being good or not? From my naive perspective, it seems like a lot of meddling, and it isn&amp;#x27;t clear if such frequent changes are required. If they are required, I suppose that bothers me just as much since it implies a fragile economic system.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cheald</author><text>The Fed&amp;#x27;s dual mandate is to &amp;quot;maintain price stability&amp;quot; and to &amp;quot;ensure maximum stable employment&amp;quot;, both of which are only accomplished through explicit manipulation of the economy. They&amp;#x27;re an enormously powerful entity, and if they&amp;#x27;re actually accomplishing their goals, do help keep the economy running smoothly (most specifically, IMO, by improving the confidence of people to make long-forecast economic decisions), but when they get it wrong, they have the potential to cause damage at a scale nearly unrivaled by anyone else.</text></comment>