On 9/4/07, Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The halting moves themselves aren't directed at the working class, > but the haltingness takes the w.c. in to consideration. That is, > without the financial crisis, the Fed would be hanging tough, and not > even the melodramas of recent weeks (which seem to be subsiding, at > least for now) are enough to make them shake that toughness.
In other words, the Fed has conflicting goals. It wants to simultaneously keep unemployment from falling "too far" and to keep the financial system stable. The first involves raising interest rates when U gets near the estimated "natural" rate or at the smallest hint of faster inflation. The second involves lower rates. -- Jim Devine / "In the years since the phrase became a cliché, I have received any number of compliments for my supposed ability to 'think outside the box.' Actually, it has been a struggle for me to perceive just what these 'boxes' were — why they were there, why other people regarded them as important, where their borderlines might be, how to live safely within and without them." -- Tim Page (THE NEW YORKER, August 20, 2007).
