Christopher Waller, Interview: with Neel Kashkari

“Yeah, at this point I don’t care what the reasons are. Inflation’s too high and my job is to get it down. I don’t care what the sources are. I don’t care about any of these things. That means we have to raise rates, we have to cool off demand, and try to get inflation pressures down. If we get some help from supply chain resolution, that’s fantastic, but I’m not counting on it. I’m just going to say, “I’ve got to get this stuff down,” and that’s the only reason they put me on this Board of Governors. So inflation is first and foremost, our concern. Now, in the back of our heads, we know we have this powerful, but very blunt tool called the Fed funds rate that we can raise and lower. If you start trying to slow down the economy, you do run the risk that you’re going to put some downward pressure on economic performance, and some potential downward pressure on labor markets.”