The drop in stock prices last month had some people wondering whether it was time for Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve to call a halt to raising interest rates.
That might come as a shock to many other market observers. The federal funds rate is at just 2.75%; at the start of the year some predictions had it that it would go as high as 4.5% by the end of 2005. And for now the Fed is maintaining its stance of measured increases, which is its way of telling market participants that they should expect quarter-point increases at each successive open market committee meeting.
Those in favour of putting a halt to rate increases argue that these are starting to have an adverse effect on growth, even at such low long-term levels. The...
