Since 2010, payroll employment has increased by almost 16 million jobs, and the unemployment rate has fallen from 10 percent to 4.8 percent--in line with most estimates of the longer-run normal level (or natural rate) of unemployment and with the median estimate by FOMC participants in the December 2016 Summary of Economic Projections (SEP).
Disruptions and disturbances in the U.S. payment system thus can easily have global implications. Fedwire, CHIPS, and the specialized depositories and clearinghouses for securities and other financial instruments, are crucial to the integrity and stability not only of our financial markets and BIS Review 31/1997  -3-  economy, but those of the world.