James Bullard, Interview: CNBC

“I think I said 3.75 to four is my target for this year, for the end of this year. And I like the front loading, I like the idea that you get the rate increases in earlier, rather than later. We’ve got inflation right now, we’ve got a strong labor market right now. It seems like a good time to get to the right neighborhood for the funds rate.”

“Yeah, I think the front-loading idea is that, first of all, you show you’re serious about inflation fighting and you want to get up to the level that will put downward pressure on inflation. We’re at 2.33 right now, that’s not high enough to be serious about putting downward pressure on inflation. Market has helped us a lot, there’s been a lot of pre pricing during the spring and the summer here. But we have to get our policy rate to where it needs to be to put downward pressure on inflation. And I think you got to have a three handle.”

“Yeah. Well, this is such a volatile environment that you’re not quite sure what’s next. So I think I’d want to be careful about promising anything one way or another, about what would happen next year. But a baseline would be that probably inflation will be more persistent than what many on Wall Street expect. That’s going to be higher for longer and I think that’s a risk that’s underpriced in markets today.”