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US Headed Toward 'Hard Recession' as Fed Implements Highest Rate Hike in 22 Years

© AP Photo / Seth WenigIn this Nov. 23, 2020, photo, a street sign is displayed at the New York Stock Exchange in New York. S&P DJ Indices is removing 21 Chinese companies from its indexes, or groups of stocks and bonds used to track financial market movements, after Americans were barred from investing in them as part of a feud with Beijing over technology and security.
In this Nov. 23, 2020, photo, a street sign is displayed at the New York Stock Exchange in New York. S&P DJ Indices is removing 21 Chinese companies from its indexes, or groups of stocks and bonds used to track financial market movements, after Americans were barred from investing in them as part of a feud with Beijing over technology and security. - Sputnik International, 1920, 27.07.2023
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Earlier Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve announced another interest rate hike by a quarter of a point, marking the 11th rate increase since March 2022 and the highest in 22 years.
Sergio Rossi, professor of macroeconomics and monetary economics at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, told Sputnik that the Federal Reserve’s decision to continue raising interest rates will lead to a “hard recession” in the near future.
Rossi admitted that the Fed's decision was “not surprising” as the US has yet to hit its goal of 2% inflation, but that it “will negatively affect the US as well as the global economy” after banks and other financial institutions “record an increasing number of non-performing loans” that cause them to default on their debts.
Instead of taming inflation, Rossi said the increase of the federal funds rate to 5.25-5.5% will increase the measured rate of inflation.
“An increasing number of small and medium-sized firms will increase their prices as a result of banks charging a higher rate of interest to these firms’ loans,” Rossi told Sputnik, adding that this will “reduce the volume of new consumer loans, thereby reducing households’ expenditures.”
Screaming dollar - Sputnik International, 1920, 26.07.2023
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The decision to increase interest rates will further lead to an appreciation of the US dollar in the foreign exchange market, negatively impacting US exports.

“All these factors will reduce the level of firms’ investments in the US economy,” Rossi said, noting it would negatively affect the labor market for “both employment and the wage level of … middle-class workers, who will therefore reduce [their] level of consumption.”

That, Rossi said, may cause a “vicious” cycle that pushes the US into a “hard recession,” which will inevitably spread to other Western economies already suffering from inflation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and Western sanctions on Russia.
The US and other Western countries are using “totally wrong macroeconomic analysis” that will only exacerbate their economic issues. Instead, Rossi advises they target companies who have been taking advantage of raw material shortages to increase prices needlessly.
“No increase in the policy rate of interest will ever be able to address this so-called ‘greedflation,’ which can only be averted with a higher taxation of profits,” Rossi added.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters earlier Wednesday that it "certainly" remained a possibility that the group would move to raising funds once again during the looming September meeting.

The US central bank has not maintained such an aggressive rate hike progression since the 1980s, when it was contending against a struggling economy and high inflation.

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