Edmund L. Andrews (Extracted from "The Fed Lifts Rates Again, Despite Rise in Fuel Price", New York Times, 2 November 2005

"Undaunted by back-to-back hurricanes and higher oil prices, the Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates on Tuesday for the 12th time in a row and made it clear that more increases were on the way."

[Ed: Fed Chairman Greenspan started dropping interest rates from 6.5% in 2000 as an attempt to restore the economy after the dotcom shares crash, all the way down to 1% in 2003 and keeping it there for a year in an attempt to expand the economy for President Bush. This has caused massive inflation. This isn't inflation that the ordinary American would notice -- so far -- but it has had the effect of pouring vast sums of corporate money into investment abroad (almost half of Chinese export profits are owed to American firms -- but stays in China). Also, because of lack of investment opportunities at home (America makes few new consumer goods these days for export), the private money of the American rich has been going into hedge funds or second-homes (half of new housing). However, by restoring American interest rates to the "sensible" level of 4.5% he may, in fact, be pricking the property boom (that is, of the other half of non-rich new-house buyers) and bankrupting half of highly indebted American credit card owners. Greenspan is probably now in the process of making his second major mistake and Bernanke, who inherits the title in January, might find himself presiding over the beginning of the second American (World) Depression.]