Feds Raise Key Interest Rate for First Time in 7 Years

The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade.

The lending rate has been at zero for seven years, with the goal of reviving an economy in chaos.
    
The move is a sign that the Fed believes the economy is strong enough to move ahead and that it wants to limit inflation down the road. Global stock markets were up Wednesday ahead of the hike.

The Fed is widely expected to make gradual hikes in the lending rate going forward in order to avoid shocking the economy.

But CBN News Economics Contributor Stephen Moore said the Fed's policy to keep the key interest rate at zero has not had the desired impact former head Ben Benanke and current Chair Janet Yellen hoped for.

"Fed money creation can't reverse the effects of bad tax and regulatory policy," Moore said.

"Bernanke and Yellen contend that this program saved the world economy from a second Great Depression," Moore writes. "They point to the surge in the stock market since 2009 as more evidence that the strategy worked swimmingly."

"But what Americans want is growth.  What has all this money creation bought us in terms of helping juice the economy, creating jobs, or giving the American worker a pay raise? Nada."

Read Stephen Moore's full analysis about this policy's impact on your wallet here.