Inflation Pressures Are Easing but Rate Cut Forecast Remains Uncertain

The New Year is beginning where the old one ended -- with uncertainty about when – or whether – the Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates.

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The scheduled reduction in the “conforming loan limit,” determining the maximum size of mortgages Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can purchase from originating lenders, won’t have nearly the devastating impact on borrowers and the housing market that industry executives and consumer advocates have predicted.

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There’s more than one way to hold lenders accountable for the questionable policies and procedures that contributed to the financial meltdown and the collateral damage that continues to plague the housing market. While state and federal regulators continue to hammer out the details of an agreement targeting the foreclosure-related abuses of loan servicers, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has filed suit against 17 banking giants, accusing them of fraud (among other things) in the sale of more than $190 billion in mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

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There is no question that economic reports have been gloomy of late, but they have also been perverse. It’s almost as if malevolent spirits bent on confounding the experts are producing streams of data that seem to establish a pattern, and then releasing just enough contradictory data to challenge the pattern they’ve set.

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Economic mood swings of late have followed the trajectory of a rubber ball bouncing on an uneven surface – up a little, down a lot, skittering to one side then another, forward and then back, the direction altered (and sometimes skewed) both by economic turbulence and gale force political winds.