The U.S. central bank should not prematurely withdraw pandemic support for the U.S. economy just because some people are getting rich in the stock market, said San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Mary Daly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re building this bridge, which is barely having many communities hang on, and the stock market is running pretty good and many people who already have money are getting more money,\u201d she said Friday during a virtual discussion hosted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not willing to pull that bridge away and injure, in my judgment, the livelihoods of people — because they don\u2019t have jobs, they don\u2019t have income, they don\u2019t have wage growth — simply to ensure that some people who already have stock market wealth don\u2019t get more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daly, who votes on monetary policy this year, was asked to comment on the frenzy around GameStop Corp.\u2019s meteoric stock-price rise. Some people have blamed the central bank\u2019s ultra-easy policy for fanning a bubble in financial markets, but policy makers have shown no inclination so far to step back.<\/p>\n
The Fed held interest rates near zero at its meeting this week and repeated an assurance it would continue its massive monetary assistance for some time to come. Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who was also asked about excessive market speculation, sidestepped several attempts to get him to comment directly on GameStop, saying instead that financial-stability vulnerabilities overall are \u201cmoderate.\u201d<\/p>\n