I'm not an economist but this emergency .75 cut in interest rates strikes me as a really panicky move. Either that, or Bernanke knows stuff we don't. We haven't had any sort of downturn for a very long time; we've jumped from one bubble to another; and the Fed's view is that we need to be cushioned from any further effects from the global market and US imbalances? I repeat: I'm not an economist, just a lay person with some basic knowledge of the economy. But the Fed just made me a lot more concerned about the economic future, not less.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/01/the-fed-panics/220949/
