Where does the regional Federal Reserve gather their information from?

Question

I was reading an article where the kansas city fed wanted to raise the interest rate 50BP and 5 other banks only wanted half that. Where do they get their infomation?

Answer 1

Fed. basics ... they control printing of money and interest rates to other banks. To be a member bank, you need to share accounting information. This gives the Fed access to all of the national banks in America in regards to interest rates.

It's not only financially charged, but also very political as most politicians look to economists to save their butt's when the economy goes bad. Some changes can be made to the economy, but not that many; however, if this economical changes gives the politicians (& reportors)stuff to blubber on about for the next 8 hours, then the politicians are happy.

If you want more advanced stuff ... click on the Federal Reserve Website below.

Answer 2

Research. They also run a lot of statistics and make economic models to see what effect that will have on the regional economy. In the end, if the Fed changes interest rates, they all decide on an average amount in basis points. The presidents of each regional bank meet with Bernanke for a cup of tea and figure out what they should do, its all really interesting! But this is coming from an economics student!