Economic Growth Predicted: Fed Vice Chairman Warns Against Interest...
Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Preston Martin warned yesterday against going overboard in an effort to lower interest rates to spur the economy as two key Wall Street economists predicted economic growth would pick up later in the year.</br></br>Martin said that the Fed should try to foster stronger economic growth from its current sluggish pace. He added that it was hard to tell whether the economy would rebound from its current slowdown.</br></br>Martin said that the FedÛªs objective should be fostering ÛÏa so-called soft landing for the economy.Û In this way, output would be "growing somewhat toward the upper range of its potential rate, so that the excessive unemployment rate can decline gradually and the inflation rate can also decline gradually or at least not rise."</br></br>Federal Reserve Governor Henry Wallich yesterday predicted the nationÛªs economic growth could be as low as 2.5 percent this year.</br></br>Before Martin spoke yesterday, however, the stock market went into an early morning tailspin on reports that Wall Street economist