Maurice Hinchey: “on Tuesday of next week, March 31, the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve Board will meet. This is a…”

“on Tuesday of next week, March 31, the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve Board will meet. This is a critically important meeting, for out of this meeting the FOMC will recommend short-term interest rates for the foreseeable future. There are urgings coming to the Federal Reserve now from monetarists that watch the Federal Reserve Board, and those urgings are that the Federal Reserve should increase interest rates. If they do so, that would be a very serious mistake. It would be a serious mistake if these times were ordinary or normal. But, in fact, they are not ordinary nor normal, for we are beginning to experience the profound negative economic consequences of the financial crisis that is sweeping across east Asia. I say we are 'beginning' to feel those effects, and we will continue to feel them and the full brunt of those effects will not express themselves on our economy until some time later this year, perhaps within the next 6 months to a year. The effect of the downturn result from this financial crisis in east Asia is going to be to suppress prices, and it is estimated that it will cost us substantially in terms of our own economic growth. Our economic growth rate now, which is in excess of 3 percent, could fall by more than 2 percentage points. In other words, we could be experiencing economic growth of only 1 percent or, at worst, our economic growth could fall into the negative range.”