Economists decipher Fed's rate decision

Within an hour of the Federal Reserve's interest-rate decision Wednesday, economists were already sifting through the tea leaves of the Fed's written statement.

The Fed said at 2:15 p.m. Eastern time that it would hold interest rates steady. By 2:36, High Frequency Economics' Ian Shepherdson had sent out a report saying the statement omitted the Fed's April 30 comment that "activity remains weak." Instead, Shepherdson noted, the Fed said "activity continues to expand, partly reflecting some firming in household spending."

By 3:17 p.m., Payden & Rygel economist Thomas Higgins had sent out a note saying the Fed's tone fell between a bias to do nothing and a bias to tighten rates. That's from his reading of this Fed line: "Although the downside risks to growth remain, they appear to have diminished somewhat, and the upside risks to inflation and inflation expectations have increased."

Silicon Apple

The San Jose, Calif., area may be called "Silicon Valley" but it's not the country's technology-employment capital. That would be the New York City area, according to the American Electronics Association.

The AeA studied data from 2006, the most recent available. It found the New York metropolitan area, from New Jersey to Long Island, had about 40 percent more tech employees than Silicon Valley.

The home of Cisco Systems, eBay and Google isn't even No. 2 on the list. That's the Washington, D.C., area, home to many AOL workers. San Jose did have the highest concentration of tech workers, with 286 per 1,000 total private-sector workers. No. 2 was Boulder, Colo., with 230.

The Associated Press