Good Morning!

Over the weekend I watched the interview with Allan Greenspan and Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes. Did you?How insightful and candid he was about  his 20+ years in the limelight of US financial policy. I was struck with his  comments especially about how intelligent Clinton was about economics and how profane Nixon could be in his daily conversation. He was particularly negative about Bush, et al and how they really surprised him by turning their backs on fiscal responsibility in exchange for political gain. We will look forward to Greenspan’s new book, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, www. allangreenspan.com

So with that preface, we await tommorrow’s announcement about the Fed’s cutting the federal funds  rate. Today we report from the Christian Science Monitor the following:

Fed Expected to Cut Interest Rates Tuesday
Christian Science Monitor (09/17/07) P. 2; Scherer, Ron
Many economists believe the Federal Reserve will institute the first cut to the federal funds rate in more than four years when it meets on Tuesday, with some anticipating a 0.25-percentage point cut and others a drop of 0.50 of a percentage point. A decline in the short-term interest rate, according to experts, will indicate that rising inflation is not as big a concern as an economic slowdown and likely will be made in response to a household survey revealing that 300,000 jobs were lost in August and that an average of 17,000 were lost per month since the start of the year. However, National City Corp. chief economist Richard DeKaser is worried the central bank could further weaken the dollar and impact inflation by cutting short-term interest rates. Experts do not believe such action would have much affect on mortgage costs, as they are tied to long-term interest rates.