According to an interview with Federal Reserve Vice Chair Stanley Fischer, although the economy in the first quarter was “poor,” he says the rebound is already underway with wage increases. The bond market turned negative on these remarks, according to what cnbc tells MHProNews, fearing interest rates will move up sooner rather than later. Noting that rates will rise incrementally, he says that markets “can’t depend on the current situation continuing forever—or even probably—beyond the end of this year.”

He reiterated during the interview that the Fed would like to see a little more growth in the economy, less unemployment and more wage growth before the Fed moves the interest rate which Fischer says will likely be one-quarter to one-half percent. “We have to take into account we may be making a mistake on one side or the other. We have to ask what will go wrong,” he said. “I say that if we get this in proportion, we’re going to be changing monetary policy from the most extremely expansionary we’ve been able to do in all of history, to an extremely expansionary monetary policy.”

While some economists say the strong dollar is the cause of the weakening economy, Fischer says the dollar is one of many reasons affecting the economy. Fischer also says the quantitative easing by the European Central Bank has been more successful than what analysts thought at the beginning. ##

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  Article submitted by Matthew J. Silver to Daily Business News-MHProNews.