Economics
Powell’s Fed Seeks to Limit Pain of Unavoidable Economic Slump
- Fed cut interest rates and resumed quantiative easing Sunday
- U.S. central bank tries to keep markets functioning amid virus
Jerome Powell
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell recognizes that he can’t prevent what increasingly looks like a sudden stop of the U.S. economy, but he’s still hoping to avoid a freezing up of financial markets that makes the pain even worse.
In a roughly 40-minute conference call with reporters on Sunday after the Fed slashed interest rates close to zero and launched a fresh quantitative easing program, Powell acknowledged the economy is set to contract in the second quarter as companies and households hunker down to hinder the spread of the deadly coronavirus.