Speeches, Interviews, Essays

“The current fed funds rate is far below a neutral setting—which, as I mentioned before, I think is in the range of 2-1/4 to 2-1/2 percent. So policy needs substantial repositioning.” “I favor a front-loaded adjustment in the fed funds rate toward the neutral range. I think front-loading is important to speed up the necessary…

“So as a policy maker, the way I’m thinking about it is that right now, we’re raising rates expeditiously to what we’ve been saying to a more normal level, which is something that we’ll reach maybe in the fourth quarter, but it’s not a stopping point. It’s not a looking around point. We don’t know…

“And so we’re seeing prices going up all across the US economy, but also all across economies all around the world. And so there’s some global things that are going on as well. And so it’s our job to try to bring that back into balance. So you’ve probably noticed that we’ve started raising interest…

“With all this said, there can be no doubt that what we call eds and meds — colleges, universities, and nonprofit medical institutions — drive economic activity. These institutions are often referred to as anchor institutions because of the multiple ways they are tied to a place. Unlike corporate headquarters, manufacturing facilities, or sports franchises…

“The plan that the FOMC announced last week did not rule out asset sales, and I would favor the FOMC considering asset sales after balance-sheet reduction is well underway to speed up the return of the portfolio’s composition to being primarily Treasury securities. This would be consistent with the FOMC’s stated desire to minimize the…

“Yeah, I don’t think we want to emphasize one report too much, but my takeaway is that inflation is broader and more persistent than many have thought, and that the Fed will have to act in order to keep inflation under control. We’ve got a plan in place which is 50 basis points at the…

“You might ask if this path requires a Volcker-like recession. Not necessarily. At 83 basis points (the current EFFR), we are still far from the level of interest rates that constrains the economy; for my colleagues on the FOMC, this neutral rate is in the range of 2-3 percent. And before the Great Recession, the…

“With clear signs of demand exceeding supply and an economy running too hot, the primary focus of monetary policy is to turn down the heat and restore price stability.” “Although we are facing highly unusual and challenging circumstances, I am confident we have the right tools to achieve our goals. In fact, we have an…

“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…

Transcript not available (link to interview provided). https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cleveland-fed-mester-interest-rate-hikes-151904583.html