Greg had the post here: Fed Governor Waller: Inflation well above 2% target
Wallers remarks are attracting a lot of attention, so highlighting them here for the Asia early birds.
Waller was speaking in an interview on CNBC, in a very brief summary (see Greg's post above or CNBC for more) :
- If the August and September jobs report show growth in the 800,000 range, that would get the U.S. economy near its pre-pandemic level and, Waller said, meet the Fed's benchmark for when it starts tightening policy.
- "In my opinion, that's substantial progress and I think you could be ready to do an announcement in September"
- "That depends on what the next two job reports do," he added. "If they come in as strong as the last one, then I think you've made the progress you need. If they don't, then you're probably going to have to push things back a couple months."
Also, on inflation, Waller said the recent rise is likely transitory but there is evidence that may not be the case.
And, this is even more of an eyebrow-raiser from Waller:
- “In my view, with tapering we should go early and go fast in order to make sure we’re in position to rate rates in 2022 if we have to,” he said. “I’m not saying we would, but if we wanted to, we need to have some policy space by the end of the year.”
As Greg noted, these are significant comments:
- Generally speaking, the governors have been more dovish while the Hawks have been amongst the regional bank presidents. Waller's more hawkish comments are a departure from that generalized trend.
