In their economic outlook, Fed officials expected the pace of economic growth would remain "moderate over coming quarters but would pick up over the 2013-2015 period."
Many Federal Reserve officials support spelling out more explicitly how the central bank will make future interest-rate decisions, according to minutes of theFOMC`s last policy meeting released Thursday.
The most active discussions were connected with extention of the low rate till 2015, as calendar date can give clarity but show the uncertainty of Fed over economic outlook and if not- it will make a feeling of adjustment is made automatically as recovery proceeds.
Federal Reserve policy makers said they could change the size of the central bank’s monthly asset purchases to reduce the risks associated with the program, such as disrupting financial markets and spurring inflation.
“Most participants thought these risks could be managed since the committee could make adjustments to its purchases, as needed, in response to economic developments or to changes in its assessment of their efficacy and costs,” according to the record of the Federal Open Market Committee’s Sept. 12-13 gathering released today in Washington.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his policy making colleagues announced the central bank will buy $40 billion a month of mortgage bonds in a third round of quantitative easing. The FOMC aims through its newest phase of record stimulus to spur economic growth and bring down an unemployment rate stuck above 8 percent for 43 months.
Still there are those who overall uncertain that QE could help financial markets and the economy, on the contrary, they fear it could complicate exits from the current policy and even destabilize markets. A few FOMC participants expressing “skepticism” that the program could help, and several saying that the purchases could “complicate the committee’s efforts to withdraw monetary policy accommodation when it eventually became appropriate to do so.”
Policy makers discussed whether to purchase mortgage-backed securities or Treasury debt with some saying that “all else being equal, MBS purchases could be preferable because they would more directly support the housing sector, which remains weak but has shown some signs of improvement.”
The FOMC`s members expressed their worries about world headwings in their negative influence on the growth, including fiscal cliff and EU crisis as main risks.