The Federal Reserve Board may owe the banking crisis a thank-you note.
That's because the economic turmoil created by the collapse of three banks this month and the impairment of a fourth gave it a bit of breathing room in its increasingly unpopular campaign to subdue inflation with a series of sharp interest rate hikes.
The Fed on Wednesday announced a quarter-point increase in its benchmark federal funds rate. That's its ninth rate increase in a row, totaling 4.75 percentage points in the space of a year — the fastest run of increases since those instituted by then-Fed Chair Paul Volcker over 17 months in 1979-80.
