FOMC’s November Minutes Reflect Euro Crisis Concerns

With the euro zone crisis deepening, members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) elected to stay the course in November by keeping interest rates historically low and pooling investments from agency debt into agency mortgage-backed securities.

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The ""Federal Reserve""::http://www.federalreserve.gov/default.htm released ""minutes"":http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20120103a.htm Tuesday that showed most members concurring, absent one, with the need to toe the line in tandem with recent policies.

Chicago Fed chief Charles Evans once more dissented from other FOMC members in arguing for ""additional policy accommodation"" capable of supplying the economy with new stimulus.

The FOMC went with past decisions by agreeing to continue reinvesting agency debt in agency mortgage-backed securities. Minutes from the November meeting show that members also wanted to keep interest rates at 0 percent.

Minutes framed discussions around concerns about weakening

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confidence in the markets as a result of any potential default by euro zone nations, even while the U.S. economy signaled that it would continue climbing out of the financial crisis.

""Strains in global financial markets continue to pose significant downside risks to the economic outlook,"" the FOMC said.

A series of events helped rattle financial markets in late 2011 as it appeared less likely that debt-saddled countries like Greece would pay their public debts.

European Union member states coupled debt write-offs worth trillions of euros with strict austerity measures that led to ousters for the prime ministers from Greece and Italy, leading experts to speculate that the euro could fall apart ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô and destabilize a still-settling recovery for the U.S. economy in the process.

To prevent any further problems, five central banks from around the world, including the Fed, coordinated a campaign that significantly eased currency exchange swaps to make borrowing on the U.S. dollar easier.

Despite growing concern about the euro, minutes reflect that FOMC members expect ""a moderate pace of economic growth over coming quarters and consequently anticipates that the unemployment rate will decline only gradually toward levels"" lower than 9 percent seen in November.

And how would the FOMC elect to deploy monetary and fiscal policies by the next meeting?

Members agreed that as circumstances change it would ""employ its tools to promote a stronger economic recovery in a context of price stability.""