Tom Barkin, Speech/Q&A: Virginia Council of CEOs

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“There is a lot of uncertainty about what if anything this bank situation does to consumer confidence, business confidence, business investment, consumer spending, availability of credit … there are a lot of questions about what is going to happen to demand and inflation … it is pretty hard to know here on the 30th of March.”

“I’m comfortable with the trajectory we’re on now — meeting by meeting, whether you need a 25 basis point hike or not … you’ll never get it perfect but if you are not quite right you’re not going to get it that far wrong.”

“If you back off on inflation too soon, inflation comes back even stronger, which requires us [the Fed] to do even more and cause even more damage … with inflation high, broad-based and persistent, I just didn’t want to take that risk.”

“Monetary policy is said famously to work with long and variable lags, but our 475 basis points of rate hikes over the past year have not yet compellingly moved inflation back to our 2% target,”