Central Banks

Summers Sees ‘Disturbing’ Signs Fed Driven by Internal Politics

  • Former Treasury chief detects internal politics at play
  • Summers also says ECB beset by bigger inflation threat than US
WATCH: Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers says he is confused by the Fed’s action at its June meeting.Source: Bloomberg
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Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said that Federal Reserve policymakers seemed to settle on an inconsistent set of actions this week based on internal dynamics at the US central bank.

“I found the Fed’s action a little bit confusing,” Summers said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s “Wall Street Week” with David Westin. While there were arguments for not raising interest rates on Wednesday, those wouldn’t be consistent with adding two rate hikes to the outlook for the rest of the year and boosting the forecast for growth — as the Fed did — he said.