Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City president Thomas Hoenig said the US would continue to grow modestly as it works off excesses of the past two decades amid the current failure to address the nation’s long-term deficits and debt ceiling that could further harm the recovery.
“The failure to act does create further uncertainty and further delays decisions that might otherwise be made about economic choices,” Hoenig said on Tuesday in a speech in Kansas City, Missouri. “It would delay businesses’ ability to make choices” and “it would only harm the country further,” he said, referring to the lack of a fiscal agreement from US Congress and the White House.
Hoenig said the economy will grow “at a modest pace” of 2.5 percent to 3 percent this year and next because “the US economy is adjusting to the excesses and poor policy of the last 15 to 20 years.”
The US Federal Open Market Committee voted on June 22 to conclude its US$600 billion bond-buying program as scheduled and maintain its balance sheet near record levels. The committee also affirmed its pledge to keep its target interest rate near zero for an “extended period.”
Hoenig repeated his criticism of the central bank’s near-zero interest-rate policy.
“I’ve lived through three crises now and I know the conditions that are right for bubbles and guess what? Zero interest rates create the conditions for bubbles,” Hoenig said at an agriculture conference at the Kansas City Fed.
Hoenig, who doesn’t vote on monetary policy this year, has repeatedly urged the central bank to tighten monetary policy to limit inflation and avert the emergence of asset price bubbles, calling for it to raise the federal funds rates to 1 percent. The Fed has kept the rate at zero to 0.25 percent since December 2008.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last