An eagle tops the U.S. Federal Reserve building's facade in Washington, July 31, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstWASHINGTON/CHICAGO, Jan 19 - The chances of a "soft landing" for the U.S. economy appear to be growing, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard said on Thursday, and the central bank is "probing" for the right level of interest rates to control inflation without tanking employment.
That aggressive policy tightening is beginning to slow demand as intended, Brainard said, but the full impact is yet to come. In December, Fed policymakers as a group signaled the policy rate will need to rise to at least 5.1%; financial markets are pricing for the Fed to stop just short of 5%. In separate remarks on Thursday, New York Fed leader John Williams said he was not ready to prejudge the outcome of the upcoming Fed meeting, but in comments that called for more rate rises, he did not push back on market expectations of a quarter percentage point increase.
Providing the Freaks in the ClownCaucus don't cause a default on the DebtLimit. There will be no SoftLanding. TankTheEconomy economy DebtCeiling HouseGOP PushGrannyOffTheCliff MakePeopleHomeless AbandonTheVets StockMarket stockmarketcrash UnemploymentSkyrockets