Fed’s Bullard: Recession is not inevitable

The US central bank needs to raise interest rates a bit further in order to maintain control over the country’s hot inflation in order to bring it back down toward the central bank’s 2% goal according to St. Louis Fed President James Bullard.

On Monday, Bullard said that rates need to go higher to bring inflation down.


Key Quotes

Estimates are all over the map on how many basis points qt is worth.

We’ve got ways to go to get restrictive on policy.

On pace of hikes, I defer to chair Powell, doesn’t matter that much in macro terms how quickly we get to right level.

Most important thing is we get to sufficiently restrictive level and that it is well understood by financial markets.
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All will go better if we get to restrictive level sooner to make 2023 a year of disinflation

Situation calls for much higher interest rates that what we’ve been used to.

Will have to keep rates at sufficiently high level all through 2023 and into 2024.

Labor markets continue to be extremely strong.

Feedback from labor market to inflation is not as strong as many people portray.

Tight labor market gives us license to pursue disinflationary strategy now.

Still think we’ll have below trend growth in 2023.

Recession is not inevitable