Articles About Interest Rates

On June 29, Congress avoided doubling interest rates for new federal student loans. Republicans and Democrats came together to keep interest rates on new Stafford loans, which are subsidized by the federal government, at 3.4 percent. The rates were set to double in July. It’s good news not just for matriculating freshmen but also for […]

Wobbly economies that shook up markets in 2011 took their toll on the world’s rich, though fast-growing Asia for the first time had more millionaires than North America.  According to the report, the global personal wealth of people worth $1 million declined in 2011 for the second time in four years, a side effect of […]

Although the economy has improved in the past year, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers that they still must cut the growing budget deficit.  “We still have a long way to go before the labor market can be said to be operating normally,” Bernanke said in testimony to the Senate Budget Committee.  “Particularly troubling […]

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a long-awaited speech in Jackson Hole, WY, announced no new steps the Fed will take to prop up the shaky U.S. economy.  Rather, he expressed optimism that the economy will continue to recover, based on its inherent strength and from assistance provided by the central bank.  Bernanke restated the Fed’s […]

Emerging from a financial crisis of the enormity that the United States has lived through the last several years, it is natural that the road to recovery is slower and bumpier than in a typical recession.  This is the opinion of Rick Mattoon, a Senior Economist and Economic Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of […]

The Federal Reserve is unlikely to follow the European Central Bank’s (ECB) recent decision to raise interest rates and will hold off until there is looming inflation.  The ECB’s move may be the first of several this year as high oil costs drive consumer prices above its target.  That’s not to say that some members […]

Canada avoided the collapse in housing prices that devastated American homeowners and the U.S. economy, thanks to tighter financial regulations, the lack of subprime lending and securitized mortgages. Foreclosures are rare.  As a result, Canadian real estate steadily appreciated while property values in Florida, Arizona and other hard-hit American markets tanked. According to James MacGee […]

The current ultra-low interest rates are hurting profit margins at banks that depend on the gap between what they charge borrowers and pay depositors to make money.   Pension funds also are hurting, because they are under growing pressure to meet their retirees’ obligations.  Meanwhile, some types of insurance are more costly as firms attempt to […]

As the nation gradually recovers from the Great Recession, several years are likely to pass before lending returns to pre-crisis levels, according to Federal Reserve Governor Elizabeth Duke.  The return of credit growth is far slower than during any business cycle of the last four decades with the sole exception of the 1990 – 1991 […]

The last 30 years have seen a boom for skyscraper construction because the cost of borrowing money had declined significantly. When investors borrow money to purchase assets, they send prices higher.  The problem is that this borrowing makes the markets susceptible to busts when investors sell assets to pay their debts.  The recent financial crisis […]