Zusammenfassung der Greenspan-Rede

verfasst von JüKü, 26.07.2000, 11:59

Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, said
> today that the central bank's decision about whether to raise interest
> rates again at its meeting next month would hinge in large part on
> economic data released in coming weeks.
>
> Repeating a message he delivered to the Senate Banking Committee last
> week, Mr. Greenspan told the House Banking Committee that higher rates
> were starting to slow the economy and reduce the risk of inflation, an
> analysis that has fed hope in financial markets that the Fed is finished
> or nearly finished raising rates.
>
> But the Fed chairman said the extent of the slowdown remained unclear, and
> he seemed to warn investors not to assume that the central bank's
> policy-making Federal Open Market Committee would make no changes when it
> meets on Aug. 22.
>
> Reports in the next few weeks on the unemployment rate, job creation,
> compensation costs, the growth rate and inflation"will have a significant
> effect upon what action the committee chooses to take," Mr. Greenspan
> said.
>
> At the meeting in August, he said,"we will make a judgment as to whether
> or not further action or no action is the more appropriate policy for the
> purpose of creating a more balanced economy which has the capacity to
> continue this quite extraordinary 112-month expansion."
>
> The Fed has raised its benchmark short-term Federal funds rate by 1.75
> percentage points in six steps since June 1999, to 6.5 percent, in an
> effort to squelch inflation pressures before they take root in the
> economy.
>
> Mr. Greenspan's comments came on a day in which two economic indicators
> came in slightly stronger than analysts had expected.
>
> Existing-home sales increased 2.8 percent in June, to a seasonally
> adjusted annual rate of 5.23 million. And the consumer confidence index
> published by the Conference Board, a business research group, increased to
> 141.7 in July, up from 139.2 in June, but still below the record level of
> 144.7 in January and May.
>
> Asked about the consumer confidence numbers today, Mr. Greenspan said it
> was"clear that consumer confidence remains quite high in this country,
> and that despite the evidence of some slowing down in consumer buying,
> we're not confronted with a buyers' strike by any remote sense of the
> meaning."
>
> In his appearance before the House committee, Mr. Greenspan repeated the
> prepared testimony he had delivered to the Senate panel last week, and
> answered questions for nearly three hours.
>
> Asked about transcripts of Fed meetings in 1994 that portray him as eager
> to bring stock prices down, Mr. Greenspan said he had subsequently decided
> that monetary policy should not be aimed at Wall Street.
>
>
> He said the rapidly increasing trade deficit was not an immediate threat
> because foreigners were eager to get their hands on dollars to invest in
> the United States, but he said that in the long run the issue was
>"probably the most difficult one" facing economic policy makers.
>
>"At some point something has to give," Mr. Greenspan said, referring to
> the trade and current account deficits and the dollar, which so far has
> remained quite strong.
>
>"We don't know whether it will be protracted over a very long period of
> time, in which case the adjustments will occur in the normal manner
> without any significance, or whether they'll occur more abruptly," he
> said.
>
> Mr. Greenspan also had a series of spirited exchanges with Democrats on
> the committee about whether the economy and globalization are leaving too
> many people behind.
>
> The Fed chairman said that the booming economy had helped reverse a
> decline in real incomes at the bottom of the economic ladder, and that
> incomes had been growing since the mid-1990's. He said it was important to
> recognize that globalization created economic dislocation, and to help
> those who had lost jobs or otherwise suffered economically because of the
> changes created by global markets, but that its benefits far outweighed
> its drawbacks, especially for the United States.
>
> Challenged on whether the government should do more to help people adapt
> to the rapid economic changes, Mr. Greenspan said job training programs
> were often unsuccessful, and that the best solution was to create more
> jobs.
>
>"There is no substitute for getting people employed," he said."The most
> important thing that we as a government can do to enhance the economic
> capabilities of the lesser-skilled people in this country and the inner
> cities is to keep this economic growth going."
>
> But Mr. Greenspan said there were always going to be some people out of
> work by choice or as they change jobs. And he suggested that he does not
> view the Federal Reserve or the government as capable of eradicating all
> economic problems, even amid the nation's longest business expansion ever.
>
>
> Asked by Representative Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California, what he
> would say to people who cannot afford to buy a home because of the surge
> in real estate prices and mortgage rates, Mr. Greenspan said the problem
> was not easily resolved.
>
>"I wish I could say to you I have a program which will either knock
> $100,000 off every home or raise incomes by some specific amount," Mr.
> Greenspan said. "The world is not the way we'd always like it to be."



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• Zusammenfassung der Greenspan-Rede - JüKü, 26.07.2000, 11:59