This is better, but there is still much work to do. This is essentially the message that the Fed has sent in its periodic report of the Beige Book.Although economic conditions in the United States will be "even slightly improved" since early December, loan demand and credit quality continues to decline in most regions, said Wednesday the U.S. central bank.
"Even if economic activity remains at a low level, the situation has further improved slightly and these improvements are a wider geographical perspective," according to information transmitted by the twelve regional branches of the Fed.
In the previous report, published December 2, the Fed had estimated that the situation had "improved slightly" in late October and November.
The activity of banking and financial sector remains a concern is that the central bank in the report prepared for the next meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Fed, 26 and 27 January.
"The Fed must raise interest rates" (President of the Philadelphia Fed)
The other black economy is unemployment, according to central bank: "the situation on the labor market remained generally poor, with modest increases in wages appearing in only a few regions.
Consumption expenditure of households, the traditional engine of U.S. growth, "have been at parties year end slightly higher than in 2008 but still well below 2007 levels," said the central bank.
Parallel, were the speeches of presidents of the Philadelphia Fed's Charles Plosser and Dallas, Richard Fisher, the U.S. outlook.The first said that sluggish job market should not prevent the Fed raise interest rates, while the latter said that the Fed would begin to withdraw its measures of accommodative monetary policy to avoid an increase inflationary pressures.
At the same time, Washington announced that the deficit of the United States increased from 77.5% to 91.854 billion dollars for the month of December compared to December 2008.
Shortly after the publication of the Beige Book on Wednesday, the Dow Jones up 0.36% to 10,665.65 points, after opening up 0.15%.
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