As part of its effort to cool down the economy, the Federal Reserve ratcheted up rates on Wednesday. By the time of its next policy-setting meeting in September, temperatures could be a lot lower.
Fed policy makers raised their target-range on overnight rates by 0.75 percentage points on Wednesday, and it is easy to see why. Incoming inflation data remained high since they met in mid-June, with the Labor Department reporting that consumer prices were up by 9.1% from a year earlier last month. And the labor market remained very strong, with the economy adding another 372,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate remaining at a low 3.6%.