Speeches, Interviews, Essays

“Removing accommodation is easily justified, but it is unavoidably complicated by the use of multiple policy instruments, as it was during the last normalization cycle less than a decade ago. To guide this process, the FOMC released a set of general principles for reducing the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. These principles keep…

Inflation –“There are two main contributors to the current high inflation: very strong demand, especially for goods, and supply bottlenecks. Both have been prevalent throughout the pandemic. The shutdown of factories—particularly those in Asia—and widespread lockdowns led to disruptions to logistics networks, elevated shipping costs, and prolonged delivery times.  Just as the pandemic has followed…

“I invite you to delve deep into the survey results, which make for fascinating reading. But I also wanted to highlight just a few data points that jumped out at me.” “First is just how much things have improved for chamber members over the course of the past year. The vast majority of survey respondents…

“That is, we will not have moved away from our accommodated monetary policy stance quickly enough to have effected that outcome, so I think that’s the improvement in the supply chain and business conditions and all of that. But still, it could be higher than that. So we need to move towards something that is…

“Which brings us to policy. With the labor market tight and inflation elevated, we have started the process of normalization. We started tapering asset purchases in November and then accelerated that process at our last meeting in December. At current pace, we will be done in mid-March. At that time, we will be free to…

“In the early days of the pandemic, I was often asked what “shape” the recovery would take. Would it be a “V?” An “L?” A “U”? More often than not, I liked to say it would look a little bit like a “Nike swoosh” — a sharp decline followed by a gradual upward climb. Today,…

Only general economic information was covered. “We are seeing the strongest rebound in growth and decline in unemployment of any recovery in the past five decades. Over the past year, unemployment has fallen by 2.8 percentage points, and growth is estimated to be around 5½ percent, according to a variety of private forecasts.” “But inflation…

Transcript not available (link to interview provided). https://www.wsj.com/articles/transcript-cleveland-fed-president-loretta-mester-at-wsj-cfo-network-summit-11642018385?mod=article_relatedinline

“We are tapering our asset purchases so that we’re completed by March. We’re in a position to raise interest rates. We’re in a position to withdraw the support for the economy as it gets its own feet under it. And we’re in a position to respond more if we need to, and less if we…

Transcript not available (link to interview provided). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2022-01-11/fed-s-mester-on-rates-path-balance-sheet-ethics-rules-video