Washington - In testimony before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, Fed Chief Janet Yellen reported that the Federal Reserve Board had voted 8-4 not to raise interest rates, keeping them near zero.
"The situation with Kanye West, first suffering a meltdown at a concert in Sacramento and then checking into the hospital in Los Angeles, has introduced some uncertainty with respect to monetary policy and market stability", explained the Fed Chairman. The economy, while on a steady recovery for the past eight years, remains somewhat fragile, and inflation, using the Federal Reserve's favorite measurement known as the Implicit Consumption Deflated Price Index (ICDPI) which eliminates food, energy, healthcare, housing and anything else that goes up in price, remains below 2%.
Despite the precarious situation for the economy and markets, the stock market reacted by closing at an all time high, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing above 19,000.
