Quarter-point increase in borrowing costs signals gradual end to zero interest rate policy that has been in force for past seven yearsIt has been a long time coming – more than nine years in fact. The final time the Federal Reserve raised interest rates,Tony Blair was prime minister of Britain, George Bush was US president and the iPhone was still a year absent from hitting the shops.
The quarter-point increase in borrowing costs could hardly be called a spur of the moment decision. On the contrary, and the Fed has shown Hamlet-like indecision this year as it has weighed up the pros and cons of abandoning the zero interest rate policy that has been in force for the past seven years.
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Source: theguardian.com