Rates: To raise or not to raise

IN THE minutes of the April Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting released on May 18, there were explicit mentions of the Fed considering a hike in interest rates at the June 14-15 meeting, in addition to discussions of the state of the global economy, the US economy, and the lack of productivity growth.

Here is an edited excerpt:

PARTICIPANTS indicated that their assessments of the medium-term economic outlook had not changed materially since March and discussed a number of factors suggesting that the apparent softness in spending in the first quarter was unlikely to persist.