The Wall Street Journal’s Jon Hilsenrath interviewed John Williams, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Hilsenrath says that William’ “views are often in line with top Fed officials including Chairwoman Janet Yellen”. Williams said:
- The Federal Reserve should end its bond-purchase program (QE) as planned at its policy meeting this month
- Said his outlook for the U.S. economy hadn’t fundamentally shifted lately, despite turbulence in financial markets
- He expects the Fed to start raising short-term interest rates by the middle of 2015
More (bolding mine):
- We still have very good, solid momentum in terms of economic growth
- I see real growth (in gross domestic product) during the second half of this year and next year of 3%
- I see unemployment continuing to edge down, employment growth continuing to be good
- On the inflation front, I still view inflation on a medium-term trend moving back to 2%.
- Clearly the decline in oil prices and energy prices globally is going to have a short-run effect on inflation rates. But I’m not concerned really about a pass through of energy-price declines into underlying inflation trends. The decline in global oil energy prices on its own is a positive for growth in the U.S.
- A lot of people have pointed out changes in financial conditions, specifically currencies relative to the dollar. When you look at a broad-based measure of the dollar on a trade-weighted basis, it hasn’t moved by that much.
There is plenty more from Williams at the (ungated) article, here
