Tom Barkin, Interview: CNN Business (Print)

Excerpts from article, transcript is not available —

Monetary Policy

“Inflation is high. Demand hadn’t seemed to come down. And so, the case for raising was pretty clear.”

“For me, the question was: Do you see such stresses happening that you felt like you really had to pull back and learn more? It felt very stable by the time we got there. So, the conditions were right to do monetary policy the way we want to do monetary policy.”

“If inflation is to stay elevated, then we’ll have to do more.  If inflation doesn’t, either because of the lagged impact of rate moves to date, or because of the ebbing of the pandemic era’s excess spending or because of potentially stresses in the environment, then you’d do less.”

Inflation

“The one thing that I hear loud and clear from everybody is that they hate inflation. They find inflation to be unfair. You get a raise and then you have to spend that raise at the gas station. That creates uncertainty. It’s frankly exhausting. And I think it’s exhausting to have to shop around for better prices or to explain, you know, your need for a price increase to your customers.”

“People really want us to get control of inflation. That’s what they want us to do. We’re the guys charged to do it.”

“If you can bring inflation down, that creates the conditions for a better jobs market. I think this is the right thing to be focused on.”