FED TAPERING COULD START THIS YEAR, BOSTIC SAYS

Despite recent weakness in the U.S. job market and economic growth, “I still think that some time this year is going to be appropriate” for the U.S. Federal Reserve to begin winding down its $120-billion monthly bond purchases, Raphael Bostic, president of Atlanta’s Federal Reserve bank, said in an interview last week with The Wall Street Journal.
However, the bank’s Open Market Committee is unlikely to announce any such decision after it meets next week, he said.
Since early summer, Bostic has advocated an early start to tapering the central bank’s asset purchases.
Curtailing the Fed’s bond-buying is unlikely to harm the economy, he said, and doing so “faster is better than slower.” He said that ending the asset purchase program should take no longer than a year.
“I think the economy is in a fairly strong position,” he said, noting that business leaders in his bank’s region “are still pretty bullish on things and believe the economy is very close to having its full-on sea legs and not needing as much accommodation of policy.”
TRENDPOST: Is Bostic overly optimistic or just a Fed shill playing his role to distract the masses from the truth? Anyone who has seen August’s disappointing jobs report, surveys showing consumers’ outlook tanking, office occupancy rates at unprecedented low levels, tourism, travel, trade shows, conventions, concerts all sliding, etc., would not declare the U.S. economy to be “in a fairly strong position.”
Instead, the economy’s position is precarious, which will prompt the Fed to delay any decision until next year. They will keep the cheap money scheme going to artificially prop up equity markets and economies.