Must-Read: IMF Warns Fed to Hold Its Fire on Rate Rise

Must-Read: The obvious thing. The technocratic thing. The reasonable thing. So why does the Federal Reserve think otherwise?

IMF Warns Fed to Hold Its Fire on Rate Rise: “The International Monetary Fund has urged the Federal Reserve…

…to wait until next year to raise interest rates, cautioning that the central bank’s credibility was at stake and that there was too much uncertainty to justify a much-anticipated lift-off. In its annual review of the state of the US economy released on Thursday, the IMF said it expected the US economy to grow 2.5 per cent this year despite a contraction in the first quarter. ‘The underpinnings for continued growth and job creation remain in place,’ fund economists wrote. But the IMF said conditions were still not right for the Fed to raise rates for the first time in almost a decade. It urged the central bank to wait for ‘greater signs of wage or price inflation than are currently evident’.