Economic data in the U.S. don't justify an interest rate cut by the Fed - despite recent calls for the American central bank to do so, said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody's Analytics.
While the U.S. is indeed growing at a slower pace, economic data don't suggest the need to cut interest rates, Zandi told.
"I'm not sure why the Fed needs to go into panic mode here," he said. He pointed to the latest data that showed the U.S. economy was still healthy: Unemployment rate was close to a 50-year low, wage growth was strong, inflation inched closer to the Fed's target of 2% and the stock market looked like it could hit record levels again.
Lowering interest rates under such conditions would be "counter-productive" because the move could "juice things up" and encourage debt to build up in the economy, he explained.