- Control of Growth & Development. Hormones are chemical messengers produced by glands in the endocrine system. Endocrine tissues are specialised to produce such hormones, which have genes switched on according the the hormones they were designed to produce.
There are actually three rates in the U.S. that drive virtually everything else, from bond returns to credit card interest rates. Of these, the Federal Reserve actually controls only two (the Federal Funds Rate and the Discount Rate). The third rate, called the Prime Rate, is the rate that most people falsely believe the Fed changes. In truth, this is the one rate the Fed has no direct control over.
This rate is set during the FOMC meetings by the regional banks and the Federal Reserve Board. The federal funds rate is the interest rate at which banks loan excess reserves to each other. While the Fed can't directly affect this rate, it effectively controls it through the way it buys and sells Treasuries to banks. There are 8 scheduled FOMC meetings during the course of each year.