The Federal Reserve Is Immoral
by: Tim Iacono August 13, 2009
During the first few days of each month comes a task that is increasingly approached with dread around here and, unfortunately, that condition is likely to persist for some time.
Shortly after banks make their month-end update to various short-term savings accounts that we hold, these balances are queried, only to find that, almost without exception, interest credited is less than it was in prior months and far less than it was eight or ten months ago.
Why?
Largely as a result of the Federal Reserve keeping short-term interest rates pegged to zero.
You see, aside from some Certificates of Deposit that were locked up late last year which, today, provide the strangest of feelings during a very strange period in history (i.e., feeling lucky to get about 2.5 percent interest for a one-year CD), it's nearly impossible to get more than a two percent return these days on any kind of an FDIC-insured account and, more likely than not, you'll get less than one percent.
Speaking as one who knows from experience, there's a big difference between one or two percent and five or six percent, what used to be the "minimum" rate of return for a super-safe savings account backed by the government.
More importantly, if this is causing us angst every month, I can only imagine what it's doing to the budgets of other savers whose finances are far less comfortable than ours.
Put simply, the freakishly low short-term interest rates that the Federal Reserve is jamming down everyone's throat are immoral and, maybe, just maybe, a lot more people are beginning to see this, along with other practices of our central bank that are just not right....
http://seekingalpha.com/article/155901-the-federal-reserve-is-immoral
by: Tim Iacono August 13, 2009
During the first few days of each month comes a task that is increasingly approached with dread around here and, unfortunately, that condition is likely to persist for some time.
Shortly after banks make their month-end update to various short-term savings accounts that we hold, these balances are queried, only to find that, almost without exception, interest credited is less than it was in prior months and far less than it was eight or ten months ago.
Why?
Largely as a result of the Federal Reserve keeping short-term interest rates pegged to zero.
You see, aside from some Certificates of Deposit that were locked up late last year which, today, provide the strangest of feelings during a very strange period in history (i.e., feeling lucky to get about 2.5 percent interest for a one-year CD), it's nearly impossible to get more than a two percent return these days on any kind of an FDIC-insured account and, more likely than not, you'll get less than one percent.
Speaking as one who knows from experience, there's a big difference between one or two percent and five or six percent, what used to be the "minimum" rate of return for a super-safe savings account backed by the government.
More importantly, if this is causing us angst every month, I can only imagine what it's doing to the budgets of other savers whose finances are far less comfortable than ours.
Put simply, the freakishly low short-term interest rates that the Federal Reserve is jamming down everyone's throat are immoral and, maybe, just maybe, a lot more people are beginning to see this, along with other practices of our central bank that are just not right....
http://seekingalpha.com/article/155901-the-federal-reserve-is-immoral