Gerald Epstein on why the Fed is pushing interest rates higher

Gerald Epstein

The quantitative easing is when the Federal Reserve essentially prints money and then buys Treasury bills and mortgage-backed securities and other things like that. And they've been doing about $85 billion a month and are now tapering--what they call tapering it down to $65 billion a month. And by doing that, they're putting less money and credit into the economy. And when there's less money and credit in the economy, that tends to raise interest rates. And hence you've seen a big shift in financial markets here in the U.S. and all over the world as a result of this expectation that both short-term and long-term interest rates are going to go up.