MSNBC Breaking; Fed raises interest rates a quarter point to 3.25%

[sabra]

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8419658/

Fed hikes benchmark another quarter-point
Overnight lending rate at 3.25 percent, highest level since just after 9/11


BREAKING NEWS
By Martin Wolk
MSNBC
Updated: 2:15 p.m. ET June 30, 2005


The Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates for the ninth time in a year Thursday, hiking its main benchmark to the highest level since shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Concluding a two-day midyear meeting, central bank policy-makers raised the overnight lending rate for banks a quarter-percentage point to 3.25 percent. The move will raise costs for a wide variety of business and consumer loans and was expected to be followed quickly by a matching quarter-point hike in the prime rate charged by commercial banks.

The policy-making Federal Open Market Committee, led by Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, has raised the federal funds rate a quarter-point at every scheduled meeting over the past year, beginning exactly a year ago when the benchmark stood at a 46-year low of 1 percent.

Greenspan and his colleagues consistently have referred to the need to raise rates at a "measured" pace to rein in economic growth and prevent inflation from accelerating as it often does in an expansion.

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[nadinbrzezinski]

1. ok anybody surprsied?

[Yavin4]

2. Our Economy Is Wholly Dependent On Cheap Gas and Cheap Debt

Both of which are getting more and more expensive every day.

[whistle]

3. Way to go.....banks get another 8.3% hike in their earnings...

...making this the ninth hike in the last ten months effectively increasing the cost of borrowing by 325% in less than a year.