Odds Are On A Big Fed Rate Hike This Week

The Brandon economy is just doing super, right?

The biggest Fed rate hike in 40 years? It could be coming this week.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and times are, arguably, increasingly desperate. The persistence of high inflation might force the Federal Reserve to resort to the biggest increase in a key U.S. interest rate in more than 40 years.

After another dismal U.S. inflation report, economists at the brokerage Nomura Securities on Tuesday became the first on Wall Street to predict a full-percentage-point increase in the Fed’s benchmark short-term rate.

“We continue to believe markets underappreciate just how entrenched U.S. inflation has become and the magnitude of response that will likely be required from the Fed to dislodge it,” the economists at Nomura wrote in a report to clients.

The last time the Fed made such a drastic move was in the early 1980s — another period marked by sky-high inflation.

The previous hikes were .75. A full point would be huge, which could stall most big purchase loans, effecting everything from automobiles to homes to business loans

In August, the consumer price index rose a scant 0.1%, largely because of another big drop in energy prices. And the annual pace of inflation slowed a bit to 8.3% from 8.5%.

But that was virtually all of the good news. The cost of almost everything rose last month, including food, rent, clothes, furniture, cars, medical care and so forth.

So, pretty much everything that’s necessary for life.

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