<story><title>US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for first time since 2018</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/16/us-federal-reserve-interest-rates-inflation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>whoseonthat</author><text>It seems interest rates lower during recessions. Right now we are already low and are raising which seems to be a different pattern. Is lowering interest rates a method to overcome a recession?</text></item><item><author>nickff</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s worth taking a look at the effective federal funds rate over time, which clearly shows how low it&amp;#x27;s been recently: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.macrotrends.net&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;fed-funds-rate-historical-chart&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.macrotrends.net&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;fed-funds-rate-historical-c...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>adamhp</author><text>Lowering interest rates makes capital cheaper, which does spur investment and thus economic development, so, it can certainly have that effect given the right circumstances. But keep it too low, too long, and you see money start flying around too quickly, getting a little too loose because everyone wants to get theirs, and then they start inventing things like mortgage-backed securities and everyone starts over-leveraging, because, why not, money is cheap! Then you get 2008.</text></comment>
<story><title>US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for first time since 2018</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/16/us-federal-reserve-interest-rates-inflation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>whoseonthat</author><text>It seems interest rates lower during recessions. Right now we are already low and are raising which seems to be a different pattern. Is lowering interest rates a method to overcome a recession?</text></item><item><author>nickff</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s worth taking a look at the effective federal funds rate over time, which clearly shows how low it&amp;#x27;s been recently: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.macrotrends.net&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;fed-funds-rate-historical-chart&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.macrotrends.net&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;fed-funds-rate-historical-c...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>phkahler</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt; Is lowering interest rates a method to overcome a recession?&lt;p&gt;It is claimed to be. The idea is that with lower interest rate, companies and people will be more likely to borrow money to spend and that will boost the economy.&lt;p&gt;I for one do not really believe this to be true. I suspect it&amp;#x27;s the act of lowering rates that gives a &lt;i&gt;temporary&lt;/i&gt; boost until things rebalance. In other words, economic activity has some dependence on the derivative of interest rates. This is why things were so good from 198x through 2003 or so, rates were dropping the entire time (filtered of course).</text></comment>