By Steven K. Beckner
Swonk said that doing an extension of Operation Twist is
“low-hanging fruit” that the FOMC could pick in the interim, but said
“it’s hard to justify given that rates are already low.”
Charles Lieberman, chief investment officer for Advisors Capital
Management LLC, said the economy needs to be producing 250,000-300,000
jobs per month but is growing too slowly to do that. He too wondered
aloud what more the Fed can do to induce faster growth, though.
“It’s hard to think what else they can do,” he said. “With Treasury
yields extraordinarily low, it’s hard to say what more they can do.”
“I don’t see QE3 at this point because rates are so low,” Lieberman
said. As for prolonging Operation Twist, “they could do it, but I don’t
see it making all that much difference,” he said.
Lieberman said, “The ball is much more in the court of the
administration rather than the Fed, but it gets back to: are they
willing to do things to promote more growth at the expense of other
things they want to accomplish?”
Lieberman said the best thing that could be done to spur growth
would be to deregulate energy and other sectors of the economy.
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** MNI **
[TOPICS: MAUDS$,M$U$$$,MMUFE$,MGU$$$,MFU$$$,M$$BR$]