To keep interest rates at rock-bottom lows and boost the economy, the Federal Reserve is buying $40 billion a month in mortgage-backed securities, and it'll keep buying them for as long as it takes to get the economy back on track. Here's how that plan should affect your personal economy.
Despite ultra-low mortgage and savings interest rates, the average credit card rate is still high, and has barely budged over the past year. That's not so lucky for you as a spender -- but it could guide you to a windfall as an investor.
The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it would leave interest rates unchanged -- for now. For consumers, that means a holding pattern for the near term, with little impact on borrowing, great rates for mortgages, and no hikes for credit cards. By end of summer, that may change.
For the 22nd-straight month, the central bank kept its target interest rate at 0% to 0.25%. It made no new asset purchases and no changes to QE2, its $600 billion, eight-month bond-buying program. Housing and hiring are two main areas of concern in a slow-growth economy.
Simply put, the losses Irish taxpayers will be forced to cover are larger than the nation's economy can support, even with the promised bailout. The EU and Irish political leadership's attempts to put a brave face on the crisis is no match for this crippling burden.
In leaving interest rates unchanged and putting out a somewhat more downbeat assessment of the economy's progress, the Fed also didn't address the threat of deflation or propose new strategies for getting the country back to work.
The Federal Reserve held steady on interest rates Tuesday and its closely scrutinized language remained unchanged, as it pledged to keep rates "exceptionally low" for an "extended period."
With the economic recovery still on fragile ground, crippled by a 10 percent unemployment rate, Ben Bernanke reaffirms the Federal Reserve's position to hold the brakes on a key interest rate for the foreseeable future.
