Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve board of governors, warned Wednesday that the long-term health of the U.S. economy may depend on more fiscal stimulus to fight the economic impacts of the coronavirus.
FILE PHOTO: Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell testifies before the Senate Banking Committee in a hearing on the semi-annual monetary policy report to Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., February 12, 2020. REUTERS/Yuri GripasThe coronavirus has left a devastating human and economic toll in its wake as it has spread around the globe.
This downturn is different from those that came before it. Earlier in the post–World War II period, recessions were sometimes linked to a cycle of high inflation followed by Fed tightening. The lower inflation levels of recent decades have brought a series of long expansions, often accompanied by the buildup of imbalances over time— asset prices that reached unsupportable levels, for instance, or important sectors of the economy, such as housing, that boomed unsustainably.
At the Fed, we have also acted with unprecedented speed and force. After rapidly cutting the federal funds rate to close to zero, we took a wide array of additional measures to facilitate the flow of credit in the economy, which can be grouped into four areas. First, outright purchases of Treasuries and agency mortgage-backed securities to restore functionality in these critical markets.
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