They have completely and totally lost any and all credibility (when did they last have any??) Total farce. Sit back and watch the circus.
It's so stupid. It was now or never. The FED must be an independent institution. But what do we see today? It's just a toy in Obama's hands. Let's wait for another bubble.
otherwise, there was no fundamental reason to raise today. If they did raise, it would have been just to make me happy. I get impatient when things take too long.
No fundamental reasons? Why do you think so? It's probably the best time for the rate hike if we can believe official statistics. Unemployment is low, the dollar is strong, GDP is growing fast.
Because there's not moral imperative to raise rates, you raise them to prevent inflation. If unemployment is low and GDP is growing fast with no inflation at current rates, it makes no sense to raise rates. Cue the "hyper-inflation is just around the corner, I promise this time" and "all the inflation statistics are lies, we're in hyperinflation now!" people.
How about so we have ammo in case there's another recession? This way, when it does occur, there's nothing the Fed can do but more QE. And that worked so well the first time around. Rates have been zero for 7 friggen years. Stop punishing savers and start letting risk reprice. Holy cow. Let's just sit in the liquidity trap for ever!
So to be clear, we should do something that risks pushing us into a recession even though everything if going fine ("Unemployment is low, the dollar is strong, GDP is growing fast."), so that we will have a tool to help us out of the recession we caused unnecessarily? BTW, its punishing savers when you have 10% inflation rates and 8% interest rates just as much as 0% interest and 2% inflation. That delta is little changed today from the average of the last 100 years.