We don't need a Fed at all. A computer could set rates. The Fed is nothing more than a creation for the member banks to manage the economy.
The ECB and BoJ are still buying their own debt, artificially suppressing those rates. The Fed is not. Heck the BoJ has effectively shut down the bond market. We're in a centrally managed financial market - world wide. The unraveling of this is going to be wicked, though the next step will be more central bank intervention - QE for everything. They'll never let it correct, and the longer they wait until it does the worse it will eventually be. They're just that stupid and desperate.
Now let's see. Who was it that appointed Powell over Yellen. Oh, that's right. Now i remember. It was the bozo you voted for. On a serious note. I would have thought it wise to pass on a December hike, and instead wait a quarter to see how the economy shakes out in the New Year. Had they done that, however, the Fed would have been subject to criticism that they were kowtowing to Trump. They had best just stuff cotton in their ears whenever our bozo president speaks and do their thing. Should have left Janet in charge.
You used to complain about the Fed suppressing the rate by buying Treasuries and expanding it's balance sheet. Now that the Fed's unwinding are you going to complain about that too. Maybe you wouldn't even have a job now had the Fed not acted to rescue the world economy -- you might have still been lined up at the soup kitchen.. We'll never know, thanks to the Fed.
We tried no Fed a couple times. How did that work out? The Fed uses a computer. Are you suggesting they should just let the computer program itself?
Powell is doing the right thing - haven't you been reading anything I've written? Trump is in the wrong. Powell is doing his best to clean up what Yellen and Bernanke - your two heroes - flooded the system with. He won't be able to, of course, without getting a heap of blame. Fools like yourself (and Trump) will blame him for the market crashing because he tries to get rates back up to the low end of the neutral zone before the next recession instead of near ZIRP for 10 years now. But think of the good side of this - you and Trump will be on the same side of the argument.
I'm not complaining at all about what the Fed is doing. You obviously have significant reading comprehension problems. I'm supporting the Fed, and saying Trump is an idiot. Get your glasses before you log in to the forum.
You're really quite the bonehead if you think the Fed lets a computer program - any computer program - tell them what rates should be.
Well, based on the employment report, it looks like the rate increase was the right thing to do. Like I said before, they should have been raising rates long before Powell did. His hand was forced. If you want blame someone, Yellen would be a good choice.
Unfortunately, employment figures are a lagging indicator. But Powell has to play catch up because rates need to be able to be cut when there is a recession. Can't cut when you're at near 0. Though all the lunatics like Piezoe will be calling for negative interest rates as the solution as soon as the recession starts. Then we'll never, ever be able to get out of this short of a complete reset. And Piezoe will never blame Yellen or Bernanke. They're heroes to his cult.