Bernoth: Not Urging Fed Rate Cut, Just Citing Model Result

BlockBeats News, August 14th, U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen stated that he is not demanding a series of interest rate cuts from the Fed. He simply pointed out that his model shows that the "neutral" interest rate will be about 1.5 percentage points lower than it is now. Yellen stated: "I did not tell the Fed what to do." He was referring to his comments the day before about the Fed "being able to start a series of rate cuts."

Yellen said on Thursday: "What I said is that to reach the neutral rate, it would require a rate cut of about 150 basis points. If you believe in the existence of the neutral rate, I think there is room for a series of rate cuts, but I am not calling for a rate cut, I do not call for it, I just said that the model calculates the neutral rate to be about 150 basis points lower than the current level." (FXStreet)