US Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman said she is sticking with her call that interest rates would likely need to increase further to quickly return inflation to the Fed’s 2 percent goal.
US inflation remains “too high” and Bowman said she expects it would be appropriate for the Federal Open Market Committee “to raise rates further and hold them at a restrictive level for some time to return inflation to our 2 percent goal in a timely way,” according to her prepared remarks to the Connecticut Bankers Association on Saturday.
Bowman repeated her warning that “high energy prices could reverse some of the progress we have seen on inflation in recent months.”
Photo: AFP
US employment surged last month, bolstering the case for another Fed interest rate increase.
Bowman on Saturday cited Fed expectations that inflation would stay above target at least until the end of 2025, according to the median forecast released after the central bank’s policy meeting last month.
“This, along with my own expectation that progress on inflation is likely to be slow given the current level of monetary policy restraint, suggests that further policy tightening will be needed to bring inflation down in a sustainable and timely manner,” Bowman said.
She did not comment directly on whether she would support a rate increase at the Fed’s next meeting on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.
Minutes from the Fed’s policy meeting last month, due on Wednesday, might help shed light on how much central bankers are leaning toward raising interest rates again before the end of the year.
NO DECISION YET
Meanwhile, no key interest-rate decisions are scheduled this week as the global central banking community convenes in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh for annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.
“The blowout September jobs report didn’t settle the debate about whether the Fed is done hiking rates. Two critical upcoming economic indicators — the CPI and the University of Michigan consumer-sentiment survey — may give a more definitive read,” Bloomberg Economics economists Anna Wong, Stuart Paul and Eliza Winger said in a note.
“We expect September core CPI inflation to come in somewhat higher than consistent with the Fed’s 2 percent mandate, while higher gasoline prices may have pushed up short-term inflation expectations in the preliminary UMichigan survey for October,” they said.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary