What is the main purpose of FED increase and decrease interest rate?
When inflation is high or is rising generally interest rates will be raised to reduce people spending their money and slow down the rate of inflation. As interest rates rise people will be less willing to borrow money and more willing to keep their money earning a good interest rate in the bank. People will reduce their spending and invest less into alternative assets but instead put more into their bank savings. When inflation is too low and the economy is starting to slow down generally interest rates will be raised to encourage more spending to restart the economy again. As interest rates drop more will take their saving out of their bank accounts as is starts to earn very little in interest rate and more will be willing to borrow as it becomes cheaper to borrow. People will start spending more and investing their money outside of bank savings.
Why can't the Fed simply bid more than the bond's maturity value to lower interest rates below zero? The FED could do this but then it would have to buy all the bonds in the market since all other market participants would not be willing to lend money to the government only to receive less money back in the future.  Not everyone has the ability to print unlimited amounts of dollars :) You understand that the Fed is *supposed* to make overnight loans to banks, that one of its primary jobs is to be a lender of last resort?  And yes, some were foreign banks; foreign subsidies of US banks or counter-parties to large US banks.  Near-zero, yes for course we're talking about *overnight* loans.  The current commercial rate for overnight euro LIBOR is 0.26179%, in other words, 0.0026, near zero OMG conspiracy! "Quantitative Easing Explained: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/07/130408926/quantitative-easing-explained The short of it is that you're right; the Fed (or another country's Central Bank) is basically creating a large amount of new money, which it then injects into the economy by buying government and institutional debt. This is, in fact, one of the main jobs of the central bank for a currency; to manage the money supply, which in most fiat systems involves slowly increasing the amount of money to keep the economy growing (if there isn't enough money moving around in the economy it's reflected in a slowdown in GDP growth), while controlling inflation (the devaluation of a unit of currency with respect to most or all things that unit will buy including other currencies). Inflation's primary cause is defined quite simply as ""too many dollars chasing too few goods"". When demand is low for cash (because you have a lot of it) while demand for goods is high, the suppliers of those goods will increase their price for the goods (because people are willing to pay that higher price) and will also produce more. With quantitative easing, the central bank is increasing the money supply by several percentage points of GDP, much higher than is normally needed. This normally would cause the two things you mentioned: Inflation - inflation's primary cause is ""too many dollars chasing too few goods""; when money is easy to get and various types of goods and services are not, people ""bid up"" the price on these things to get them (this usually happens when sellers see high demand for a product and increase the price to take advantage and to prevent a shortage). This often happens across the board in a situation like this, but there are certain key drivers that can cause other prices to increase (things like the price of oil, which affects transportation costs and thus the price to have anything shipped anywhere, whether it be the raw materials you need or the finished product you're selling). With the injection of so much money into the economy, rampant inflation would normally be the result. However, there are other variables at play in this particular situation. Chief among them is that no matter how much cash is in the economy, most of it is being sat on, in the form of cash or other ""safe havens"" like durable commodities (gold) and T-debt. So, most of the money the Fed is injecting into the economy is not chasing goods; it's repaying debt, replenishing savings and generally being hoarded by consumers and institutions as a hedge against the poor economy. In addition, despite how many dollars are in the economy right now, those dollars are in high demand all around the world to buy Treasury debt (one of the biggest safe havens in the global market right now, so much so that buying T-debt is considered ""saving""). This is why the yields on Treasury bonds and notes are at historic lows; it's bad everywhere, and U.S. Government debt is one of the surest things in the world market, especially now that Euro-bonds have become suspect. Currency Devaluation - This is basically specialized inflation; when there are more dollars in the market than people want to have in order to use to buy our goods and services, demand for our currency (the medium of trade for our goods and services) drops, and it takes fewer Euros, Yen or Yuan to buy a dollar. This can happen even if demand for our dollars inside our own borders is high, and is generally a function of our trade situation; if we're buying more from other countries than they are from us, then our dollars are flooding the currency exchange markets and thus become cheaper because they're easy to get. Again, there are other variables at play here that keep our currency strong. First off, again, it's bad everywhere; nobody's buying anything from anyone (relatively speaking) and so the relative trade deficits aren't moving much. In addition, devaluation without inflation is self-stablizing; if currency devalues but inflation is low, the cheaper currency makes the things that currency can buy cheaper, which encourages people to buy them. At the same time, the more expensive foreign currency increases the cost in dollars of foreign-made goods. All of this can be beneficial from a money policy standpoint; devaluation makes American goods cheaper to Americans and to foreign consumers alike than foreign goods, and so a policy that puts downward pressure on the dollar but doesn't make inflation a risk can help American manufacturing and other producer businesses. China knows this just as well as we do, and for decades has been artificially fixing the exchange rate of the Renmin B (Yuan) lower than its true value against the dollar, meaning that no matter how cheap American goods get on the world market, Chinese goods are still cheaper, because by definition the Yuan has greater purchasing power for the same cost in dollars. In addition, dollars aren't only used to buy American-made goods and services. The U.S. has positioned its currency over the years to be an international medium of trade for several key commodities (like oil), and the primary currency for global lenders like the IMF and the World Bank. That means that dollars become necessary to buy these things, and are received from and must be repaid to these institutions, and thus the dollar has a built-in demand pretty much regardless of our trade deficits.  On top of all that, a lot of countries base their own currencies on our dollar, by basically buying dollars (using other valuable media like gold or oil) and then holding that cash in their own central banks as the store of value backing their own paper money. This is called a ""dollar board"". Their money becomes worth a particular fraction of a dollar by definition, and that relationship is very precisely controllable; with 10 billion dollars in the vault, and 20 billion Kabukis issued from Kabukistan's central bank, a Kabuki is worth $.50. Print an additional 20 billion Kabuki and the value of one Kabuki decreases to $.25; buy an additional 10 billion dollars and the Kabuki's value increases again to $.50. Quite a few countries do this, mostly in South America, again creating a built-in demand for U.S. dollars and also tying the U.S. dollar to the value of the exports of that country. If Kabukistan's goods become highly demanded by Europe, and its currency increases relative to the dollar, then the U.S. dollar gets a boost because by definition it is worth an exact, fixed number of Kabukis (and also because a country with a dollar board typically has no problem accepting dollars as payment and then printing Kabukis to maintain the exchange rate)" "Wiki's not entirely accurate.    My conspiracy theorist answer is because the Fed is not a government entity, it gives them increased flexibility with decreased transparency and the ability to do what is necessary to keep the currency/economy afloat under the fiat money system.  A good book I found on this is Ron Paul's ""End the Fed""." What you said is technically correct. But the implication OP might get from that statement is wrong. If the Fed buys bonds and nominal yields go down (Sometimes they might even go up if it meant the market expected the Fed's actions to cause more inflation), inflation expectations don't go down unless real yields as measured by TIPs stay still. "Haha now there's two of you.  I have two twits parrot squawking in my ears in stereo.  Okay, so maybe you aren't from the US, in which case I can forgive your confusion and completely circular logic.  You must have gone back to Wikipedia or something, because the IS and LM curves are not, in your words, operating without ""control by powerful offices in government.""  The IS and LM curve indeed cross at a level that is consistent with an equilibrium between income and expenditure's equilibirium with the money market.  But that's just the label slapped on it, it's not determinative as some sort of naturally occurring law of economics in our society.  No, these things don't just happen on their own.  If what you're inartfully implying were true, then there would be no such thing as an expansionary or contractionary monetary policy.  Manipulating and controlling the money supply is the entire reason for the existence of the Federal Reserve!  What is wrong with you?  Go read a book or something on it, fuck me.  The Federal Reserve, by setting interest rates mainly, and by open market operations, and by less frequently changing the reserve requirements which directly controls the MONEY MULTIPLIER (you know, that thing that creates money out of thin air you seem to not be able to understand exists?) is constantly changing AGGREGATE DEMAND in the economy.  Aggregate demand is what the ISLM curve is about.  It's about the equilibrium between price levels and the level of economic OUTPUT DEMANDED.  But not supplied.  That's aggregate supply, and the Federal Reserve effects that less.  But yes, you've simply expanded the scope of things I could talk about that are fucked up about banks and the Fed in particular, because the Federal Reserve, in manipulating aggregate demand for money, actually is destroying money and the efficient use of money at the same time, because the LM curve in particular really represents the relationship between REAL income and the REAL money supply.  Real means not nominal, but in actual purchasing terms.  The Fed is manipulating an LM curve that at its base is a piece of logic built on the assumption that what's going into it are real numbers, and yet by definition, the Fed acting to manipulate it makes those numbers not determined by purely market forces, but also by the Fed.  That makes them less than real.  Basically the Federal Reserve pumps up artificial levels of demand in the economy, which lasts for a bit to generate growth numbers, but in the long term it simply results in inflation and a continually delayed (at least for now) reckoning where the artificial demand (i.e. the government's ability to borrow) cannot be further expanded, and something has to give.  This down the road would be a monetary crisis involving the US dollar being knocked off its perch as the world's primary reserve currency, and the yields on Treasuries skyrocketing to the point that the government is either forced to behave or else print so much money to actually cover interest payments on the debt that the flood of money into the economy causes catastrophic inflation.  But anyway, my point is that you're making a circular argument, because you're saying that the Fed doesn't interfere in or exert tremendous control over the economy, because there's something that we know shows the given price level of money in an economy called the ISLM curve, falsely implying that everything's fine with money because it's determined by mechanical, natural laws, almost like gravity, when in fact the Federal Reserve's whole purpose is to manipulate the inputs that go into that curve.  It reduces interest rates which artificially increases income.  It also increases the velocity of money, an input for the LM curve, by increasing nominal economic output, etc. etc.  The IS and LM curves are not these things that just sort of happen on their own.  This may come as a shock, but the US has a central bank which has as its sole purpose the manipulation of these curves.  Its central mandate is control of price levels.  Its unspoken mandate is to preserve the status of the big banks on the top of society, which is why the big banks created it in the first place, and why they own all the branches (this is the root fact behind why some people say that the Federal Reserve is in fact not federal and is instead privately owned, which isn't completely literally true, but true enough in the sense that it has a clear conflict of interest between the public good it's supposed to be upholding and the private interests of the banks that own its branches and exert control over the financial system, mainly through the New York branch). But that's not the whole story about the total money supply.  There's also the pyramiding effect of the money multiplier.  It's as if you're just pretending these things don't exist.  It's real, I assure you.  Banks create money out of thin air when they extend credit to you.  To pay the obligation to them, you use the real money you in fact earned through your own labor, or from some real asset you might have.  They get the better end of the deal, and almost all the money in the economy is spawned by this process, this insanely exorbitant privilege they have.  And yes, I have a problem with it." "Keep in mind that the Federal Reserve Chairman needs to be very careful with his use of words.  Here's what he said: It is arguable that interest rates are too high, that they are being constrained by the fact that interest rates can't go below zero. We have an economy where demand falls far short of the capacity of the economy to produce. We have an economy where the amount of investment in durable goods spending is far less than the capacity of the economy to produce. That suggests that interest rates in some sense should be lower rather than higher. We can't make interest rates lower, of course. (They) only can go down to zero. And again I would argue that a healthy economy with good returns is the best way to get returns to savers. So what does that mean? When he says that ""we can't make interest rates lower"", that doesn't mean that it isn't possible. He's saying that our demand for goods is lower than our ability to produce them. Negative interest would actually make that problem worse -- if I know that things will cost less in a month, I'm not going to buy anything. The Fed is incentivizing spending by lowering the cost of capital to zero. By continuing this policy, they are eventually going to bring on inflation, which will reduce the value of the currency -- which gives people and companies that are sitting on money an dis-incentive to continue hoarding it." Typically developing economics are marked by moderate to high inflation [as they are growing at a faster pace], higher in savings rate and higher lending rates. If you reduce the lending rate, more business / start-up will borrow at cheaper rate, this in turn means lowers savings rate and leads to higher inflation. To combat this Central Banks make borrowing expensive, which lowers inflation and increases the saving rate. Essentially all these 3 are tied up. As to why these countries offer higher interest on USD is because most of the developing countries have trade [current account] deficit. They need to bring in more USD in the country. One of the ways is to encourage Non Resident Citizens to park their foreign earning back home, ensuring more funds USD inflow.  The rate differential also acts as a guide as to how the currency would be valued against USD. For example if you get 8% on USD, less than 12% had you converted same to Rouble, at the end of say 3 years, the exchange rate between USD and Rouble would factor that 4%, ie rouble will go down. Developed countries on the other hand are marked by low inflation [they have already achieved everything] as there is no spurt in growth, it more BAU. They are also characterized by low savings and lending rates. That's just factually incorrect.   Outright lying aside, the previously mentioned contraction is after after a 2.1% Q4 and clocked in just .2% below last year's national average (a five year low). Regardless of that tiny bit of logic, the Fed has forecast a 2.9% Q2.  Full employment and highest consumer confidence in years are driving it.   Even worse case in that article, the forecasts are above 2.5% for the next quarter. "This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.ceps.eu/publications/why-are-central-bankers-shifting-goalposts) reduced by 87%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; Given its comfortable position today, it is difficult to explain why the ECB is continuing unconventional monetary policy measures, such as negative interest rates or QE. The theme of this year&amp;#039;s meeting of the world&amp;#039;s central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, had little to do with monetary policy.  &gt; Central banks are made independent precisely because it is understood that they are accountable for achieving their own objective of maintaining price stability, regardless of the economy&amp;#039;s underlying growth rate.  &gt; In 1999, a core inflation rate of around 2%, combined with unemployment below 5%, justified a federal funds rate of 5%. Today, the Federal Reserve has kept its benchmark rate below 1.5% - 350 basis points lower than in 1999 - and has postponed any reduction in its bloated balance sheet.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6z2pql/ceps_why_are_central_bankers_shifting_the/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~207107 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **rate**^#1 **policy**^#2 **today**^#3 **inflation**^#4 **monetary**^#5" Great reply. This is one of reasons why I like this subreddit.  I thought that fed interest are far more important that you state. Rate is low + economy is booming (lender thinks there is good chance of repayment), banks loan money much more willingly (reserves are covered by cheap fed loans -&gt; greater profit). That should significantly affect money supply. "You are forgetting one crucial point regarding the money supply.  The US Federal Reserve increases the money supply, meaning some of the money is not really loaned, it just appears out of nowhere.  At first glance this seems even worse: over the short term, the Fed changes the money supply to help the economy in whatever way it sees fit.  But over the long term, the money supply increases to reflect economic growth.  As new technology is introduced, more can be accomplished with the same labor and resources, and thus the money supply needs to be increased.  Money is really just a convenient replacement for the barter system, so if there are more things to barter ""for"" (goods and services) then there should also be more things to barter ""with"" (money). Also keep in mind inflation.  The cost of goods and services goes up over time due to the inflation of currency, and so the money supply must also be increased so that those goods and services do not artificially increase in value, which would be very bad." This is similar to the overnight lending rate set by the US Federal Reserve Board. If money is more expensive to borrow (higher interest rate) then less will be borrowed.  Commercial and consumer loan rates follow up or down via market pressures (though possibly to a lesser extent in China) to adjust to the new central bank rate. Money creation is driven in part by fractional reserve banking: banks are required to have but a small percentage of deposits on hand in cash, and the rest can be lent out, deposited in another bank that has the same fractional reserve requirement, and that money can be lent out, etc.  Higher interest rates dampen this lending activity, so inflation is toned down. "First of all, just for the sake of clarity, the Federal Reserve doesn't actually ""print"" money - that's the job of the BEP. What they do is they buy US Treasury bonds - i.e., loan money to the US government. The money they do it with are created ""from thin air"" - just by adding some numbers in certain accounts, thus it is described as ""printing money"". The US government then spends the money however it wishes to. The idea is that this money is injected into the economy - since the only way the US government can use the money from these loans is to spend them on buying something or give it to some people that would spend them.  As it is a loan, sometime in the future the US government would pay these loans back, and in this moment the Fed would decide - if they want to ""contract"" the supply of money back, they just ""destroy"" the money they've got, by erasing the numbers they created before. They could also do it by selling the bonds they hold on the open market and then again ""destroy"" the money they got as proceeds, thus lowering the amount of money existing in the economy. This way the Fed can control how much money is out there and thus supposedly influence inflation and economic activity.  The Fed could also inject money in the economy by buying any assets after creating the money - for example, right now they own about a trillion dollars worth of various mortgage-based securities. But since buying specific security would probably give unfair advantage to the issuers and owners of this security, usually US treasury bonds if what they buy. The side effect of increased supply of money denominated in dollars would be, as you noted, devaluation of dollars compared to other currencies." "What is your biggest wealth building tool?  Income.  If you ""nerf"" your income with payments to banks, cable, credit card debt, car payments, and lattes then you are naturally handicapping your wealth building.  It is sort of like trying to drive home a nail holding a hammer right underneath the head.   Normal is broke, don't be normal. Normal obtains student loans while getting an education.  You don't have to.  You can work part time, or even full time and get a degree. As an example, here is one way to do it in Florida.  Get a job working fast food and get your associates degree using a community college that are cheap.  Then apply for the state troopers.  Go away for about 5 months, earning an income the whole time.  You automatically graduate with a job that pays for state schools.  Take the next three years (or more if you want an advanced degree) to get your bachelors.  Then start your desirable career. What is better to have ""wasted"" approx 1.5 years being a state trooper, or to have a student loan payment for 20 years?  There is not even pressure to obtain employment right after graduation.  BTW, I know someone who is doing exactly what I outlined. Every commercial you watch is geared toward getting you to sign on the line that is dotted, often going into debt to do so.  Car commercials will tell you that you are a bad mom or not a real man if you don't drive the 2015 whatever.   Think differently, throw out your numbers and shoot for zero debt. EDIT:  OP, I have a MS in Comp Sci, and started one in finance.  My wife also has a masters.  We had debt.  We paid that crap off.  Work like a fiend and do the same.  My wife's was significant.  She planned on having her employer pay it off for each year she worked there.  (Like 20% each year or something.)  Guess what, that did not work out!  She went to work somewhere else!  Live like you are still in college and use all that extra money to get rid of your debt.  Student loans are consumer debt."