Interest rates  It is an old adage that the market is a weighing
machine in the long-term and a voting one in the short-term. The
latest data published by the Federal Reserve in its Z1 Financial
Accounts of the United States show the weighing and the voting
pointing in sharply different directions. Read more   One of the
most encouraging features of the US economy has been the recent
improvement in the level of labour participation, which is the
proportion of those aged 15 to 64 who wish to work (i.e.
employed plus unemployed).   Read more  Usually the Fed waits
too long before raising interest rates. The pressure to delay is
particularly strong today. One reason is the sharp decline in
the trend growth rate of the US. As I have pointed out in these
blogs, this is the result of a sharp fall in the growth of the
population of working age and in productivity. In the decade
prior to the financial crisis (1997 to 2007), the numbers in the
US of those aged 15 to 64 grew at 1.38 per cent per annum and is
now foreca