FOMC Minutes As Ugly As It Gets...Ya Right.

This FOMC Minutes release is as ugly as it gets for today. The Fed essentially said they HAD to cut, the US economy is in major slowdown mode with major inflationary pressure. Surprise! STAGFLATION! Bernanke has said that many time if you would have listened. You could have learned this would happen in any high-school economics class. - Mr Mortgage

By Greg Robb

Last update: 2:00 p.m. EDT April 8, 2008

 

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Behind closed doors last month, top Federal Reserve officials confronted new projections of a sharp and severe slowdown, leading them to brush aside worries about rising prices and cut rates aggressively, according to minutes of the meeting released Tuesday. The majority of FOMC members said the substantial easing in March was justified given the deteriorating economic outlook, the minutes said. No one seemed in any way comfortable with recent rising prices. But the majority said it still viewed a moderation in price increases later in the year as likely. There had been no real wage gains, they noted. The decision provoked a sharp dissent from two of the Fed's most hawkish regional bank presidents. Philadelphia Fed president Charles Plosser and Dallas Fed chief Richard Fisher both warned that the public was beginning to think that rising prices were here to stay and this sentiment would be strengthened with another aggressive rate cut.

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