Snow Learns His Lesson… Sort Of

US Treasury Secretary John Snow, when asked today about future interest rates, gave the right answer this time. Contradicting evidence from earlier this week (described in my earlier post), Snow replied “I don’t really comment on interest rates. Interest rates are a matter for the Fed.” Well done. He has apparently realized that his answer to the same question three days ago was a mistake.

Of course, then he went on to say that higher rates next year wouldn’t hurt the US economy, suggesting that he won’t mind if they go higher. While that might be true, this qualification injected a bit of confusion into his clear initial statement, and has lead to at least one major financial news source to report the headline “Snow: Higher Rates Okay; Official says rate hike won’t hurt.” That’s probably not the headline he was hoping for. Perhaps he’ll get it completely right on his next attempt.

Kash