Speeches, Interviews, Essays

“So all of those things, when I put them together, global risks, global growth, I have a baseline case going into September that is 50 basis points. That’s where I’ve been since the last meeting, but I have an open mind about whether 75 is going to be necessary. And a lot of that will…

“So, in June, in the summary of economic projections, where all the FOMC participants put in their own projections of interest rates for the next few years, I recommended being at 3.9%, by the end of this year, and 4.4%, by the end of the following year. I haven’t seen anything that changes that. And…

“And so, the Federal Reserve, we’ve tightened monetary policy quite a lot very quickly and short-term policy interest rate now is at the 2.25% to 2.5% range, that’s the Federal Funds rate. And I expect that we will be increasing rates the rest of this year and into next year in order to make sure…

“What I see is supply and demand are just unbalanced. About 50% by my own staff’s estimates of the excess inflation we see is related to demand. The other 50% is supply. The Fed is really well positioned to bring demand down and we already see the cooling forming in the housing market and investment.…

“Many of the underlying causes of excessive inflation are the same as they have been over the past year or so—supply chain issues, including those related to China’s COVID containment policies, constrained housing supply, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, fiscal stimulus, and limitations on domestic energy production.” “Regardless of the source of the inflationary pressure,…

“Yeah. Right now, we’re using our tools to get inflation first stabilized and then on this, I call it a sustainable downward path, it will take some time for inflation to come back down just because of the nature of what really affected the inflation rates, including the supply side of the economy and demand.…

“Yeah, we’re going to follow the data very carefully here, and I think we will get it right. Inflation is high and we’ve had to move aggressively just to get back in position. I think one thing for everybody to remember is we’re starting from an extremely low, near zero interest rate, and now we’ve…

“The economic vitality of thousands of communities and rural geographies depends on reliable access to credit and other financial services. Over the past 40 years, much has changed in the delivery of those services, driven by demographics, technological innovation, and regulation. Over this time, community banks have continued to play an instrumental role in meeting…

“I see inflation coming down in three lanes.” “First, demand should flatten, reducing pricing pressure.” “Second, pandemic supply chain challenges should heal as pandemic pressures ease and companies adjust.” “And finally, there’s the commodities lane, items like oil and wheat … we are seeing over the last two months, the dollar strengthening and gasoline and…

“We are seeing an inflation story, in my opinions, that is dragging wages up rather than the other way around, and businesses are saying, “Oh my gosh, we’ve got these cost increases.” It’s being caused by supply chains and other factors, not a wage-driven story yet, but wages are climbing. And the risk is that…