The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) today announced that it will increase the target federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 4.0 percent. This comes after nine months of the FOMC holding the policy rate at 3.75 percent. 

The rate hike was no surprise and had been widely predicted by numerous observers. Stubbornly high price-inflation levels, coupled with August’s relatively stable employment data gave the FOMC political cover for a rate hike.

On the American Left, a familiar idea has taken root: that slavery was not just one feature of the young republic’s economy but its actual engine, the true source of the wealth that later carried the United States into industrial preeminence.