What Higher Fed Interest Rates Mean for You

Sept. 16 -- The Federal Reserve has kept interest rates at historic, near zero levels for nearly seven years. If Federal Reserve officials begin raising rates this week, what will that mean for you? Bloomberg's Ben Steverman looks at four things you may want to consider

[quentindaniels]

Well... we’re basically at zero now... so there’s that

[wanderingeyes]

the fact that a private entity gets this power in the first place stinks to high heaven anyway

[bobsmith]

The Fed sets asset prices, not the market. Since 1980s, the Fed has lowered interest rates and since 2008 the Fed has done QE to reward the asset owner class by raising asset prices. *These artificially low interest rates and QE have caused the year/generation you were born in to determine whether you are able to own a home and generate wealth* . The older generations bought homes for 1-2 times median income and bought stocks at 8 times PE ratios in the 1980s because asset prices were low because Volker set interest rates high. Then these people road the Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen and Powell puts and became rich as their homes and stock portfolios increased +10% a year. *They became rich because they were simply born at the right time* . But the asset non-owner underclass (millenials and poor boomers who didn't accumulate assets in 1980s) deal with housing at 8-10 times median income (because wages didn't increase since 1980s), a bubble stock market that only went up because of QE and low interest rates. It is a shame that 99% of people have no idea that monetary policy and not fiscal policy deserves most of the blame. Eventually the asset non-owner underclass will revolt by electing an MMT president, who will inflate away the asset bubbles and make housing affordable again (and cause a depression in the process). Please spread the word so people can understand this and we can have a change in monetary policy. This is not a left vs. right thing, it affects all of us.