{video} Is three the magic number? Celebrity deaths occur in threes, so people say, and comedy depends on trios. In journalism there's a well-worn saying that 'three makes a trend.' But how about when it comes to interest rate cuts? Since the mid 1990s, the Federal Reserve has depended on its own rule of three: when changing interest rates, that is, they have preferred a run of at least three increases or decreases. It's a practice that seems to have come about from experience: Better a number of small changes to rates to coax the economy to where the Fed wanted it to be rather than bigger changes that could ... (full story)