Fed statement, a couple of changes - ! or :(

the Federal Open Market Committee released a statement from today's every-6-week meeting.

The biggest surprise was the the Fed is starting to admit that the economy is weaker than they had previously thought (it is not surprise, though, that the economy is weak).

The Fed changed something else in their statement from the last several:
for at least a year, probably close to two, the language in their policy statements were that they would likely keep the federal funds rate "exceptionally low" for an "extended period."

Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President and former FOMC member Thomas Hoenig was a lone dissenter against this language. He was the only one to vote against the FOMC policy decisions, citing that the Fed should tighten sooner than after some time of an extended period, and therefore should change the language to reflect this.

The new language is that they will likely keep the FFR "exceptionally low" "through mid-2013." Well, that certainly increases clarity. But two more years

Interesting that the only previous dissenter was somewhat of an inflation hawk - he wanted rates up and feared keeping them low too long would increase inflation too much. According to the statement, the three who dissented this time seem to prefer a completely open ended policy without a pretty rigid commitment as the "through mid-2013" suggests. Now, it doesn't mean that they want low rates for even longer than through mid-2013, but they aren't complaining about low rates for a long time into the future.

These changes seem to be for the worse :(