Fed's Waller backs 75 basis-point rate hike at meeting this month
BNN Bloomberg
U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said he supports raising interest rates by 75 basis points this month for a second straight meeting and “probably” a 50 basis-point hike at the following gathering in September.
He also dismissed concerns that the US economy is starting to slump, a sentiment echoed by St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, who in a separate event said the US economy has a “good chance” of sticking a soft landing.
“We need to move to a much more restrictive setting” and do that “as quickly as possible,” Waller said Thursday in a webcast hosted by the National Association for Business Economics.
Regarding the idea that higher borrowing costs risk pushing the US economy into recession, Waller repeatedly stressed the need to tame red-hot inflation. “Inflation is a tax on economic activity” and the Fed is “dead set” on getting prices under control, he said.