Econintersect: The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) – the board of directors of the Federal Reserve decided to continue to “taper” – reduce their RATE of MONTHLY purchasing under their quantitative easing policy. The taper in the 18 December 2013 meeting was $10 billion, the 29 January 2014 meeting added $10 of taper, the 19 March meeting tapered $10 million. the 30 April meeting tapered $10 million, the 18 June meeting tapered $10 million and now the 30 July meeting tapered another $10 million.
The Committee sees the risks to the outlook for economic activity and the labor market as nearly balanced and judges that the likelihood of inflation running persistently below 2 percent has diminished somewhat.
This was the fourth meeting chaired by Janet L. Yellen – and little was changed in the meeting statement. Tapering of the $85 million per month quantitative easing program began in December 2013 under former FOMC Chair Bernanke.
The following table compares the statement from the previous FOMC meeting to the statement for the meeting concluding today. Â Too much is being taken out of context in the media – review the changes below in context.
