Esther George, Interview: CNBC

Fed Funds

“Well, I think I’ll be over 5% and I see staying there for some time, again until we get the signals that inflation is really convincingly starting to fall back toward our 2% goal.”

Interview question about keeping rates high – Is that well into 2024? George’s Answer: “It is for me”

Recession

“Well, I’m not forecasting a recession, but I’m quite realistic that when you see below trend growth and the idea that our instrument is going to work on demand bringing that down, it doesn’t leave a lot of margin there. So any shock could come, any risk to the outlook could send the economy in that direction. So not my forecast, but I do understand that bringing demand down creates that sort of possibility.”

“I think the economy is vulnerable when you begin to be in a rising rate environment and we see a global outlook that poses certain risk to the US as we look at that. So I think, again, I understand in a rising rate environment why people are very attuned to this issue of demand coming down. But we continue to see a very tight labor market. We continue to see persistence around inflation that I think is going to require our attention.”