Tom Barkin, Interview: Excerpts from a Reuters Interview and a Financial Times Interview
Reuters
“You could tell yourself a story where inflation comes down relatively quickly … with only a modest economic slowdown.”
“I’m not yet convinced … I do wonder whether we’re not going to need more impact on demand to bring inflation down to where we need to go.”
Financial Times
“If inflation persists, or God forbid accelerates, there’s no barrier in my mind to further increases in rates.”
“It is not obvious to me that there is a financial stability challenge of having a higher rate path . . . I don’t see the urgency of making a different decision because of financial stability risks.”
“There’s a plausible story that demand is going to come down meaningfully because of waning fiscal stimulus, eroding personal balance sheets, the lagged effects of rate moves, credit tightening, and that cooling in demand will not soon afterwards have a similar effect on inflation … I’m still looking to be convinced that story is going to turn into reality.”
“(I) can’t find anything in the recent inflation reports that make me think we’ve gotten to where we need to get.”