Higher rates should be welcome

david pauly

We want the US economy to continue to expand, so rates have to rise

The implication of the latest guessing about if and when the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates is that higher rates would be bad. Actually, it's just the opposite: the economy will be in trouble if interest rates don't rise. Does anyone think the economy, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), can continue climbing at even half its 8.2% third-quarter pace without pushing up interest rates? Does anyone want the economy to go into reverse just to keep rates low? No, we want consumers to keep spending. We want Whirlpool to sell more appliances and hire more workers. We want ...