Boston Fed’s Rosengren: Strongly Support Current Monetary Pol
MNI | Deutsche Börse Group, April 17, 2013. All Rights Reserved.
NEW YORK (MNI) – Boston Federal Reserve Bank President Eric Rosengren Wednesday said the Fed has not yet hit its employment or inflation targets, and he remains a strong supporter of its aggressive measures to spur the economic recovery – which are starting to yield results.
Taking questions from the audience after a speech at the Minsky conference in New York, Rosengren said he has been in favor of the path monetary policy has taken since the 2008 crisis, and continues to be.
Rosengren holds a voting position on the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee this year, and he said he is "strongly supportive" of the FOMC’s buying of $85 billion a month in U.S. Treasury securities and mortgage bonds to support the recovery.
The quantitative easing program is working, he said, although the recovery is still not as fast as he would like to see.
The circumstances have changed in the housing sector, for instance, with the market improving "quite dramatically."
Auto sales are also almost back to their pre-crisis levels, showing that in interest-sensitive sectors where the Fed’s actions can have an effect, "our policies are having a big impact, an important impact. We are getting a much better outcome," Rosengren said.
Rosengren focused on the subject of bank regulation in his prepared remarks, and he reiterated that the pace of regulatory reform is not moving as fast as he would like.
He said he believes some regulatory agencies do not view financial stability as part of their mandate but said the work being done now is moving in the right direction.