'Many' Fed officials think higher rates will be needed if inflation stays high

8 hours ago by CorrectAlias to c/news

Many Federal Reserve officials think the central bank will have to lift its key short-term interest rate in the coming months if inflation doesn’t subside, minutes of the Fed’s meeting last month showed.

The minutes of the July 28-29 meeting, released Wednesday, don’t provide specifics on how many of the 19 officials supported higher rates. Only 12 of the 19 policymakers vote on the outcome. Officials voted 9-3 at the meeting to keep their key rate unchanged at about 3.6%.

Inflation has since showed some signs of cooling, though gas prices have rebounded this month on renewed hostilities in the Middle East. Wall Street investors now expect the Fed to remain on hold at its next meeting in September and potentially lift rates in December, though that outlook could change.

At last month’s meeting, Fed officials were heavily focused on the threat of stubbornly elevated inflation. Fed officials worried that the Iran war, tariffs, and heavy investment in AI infrastructure were all boosting prices of a range of goods and services.

“Participants judged that their inflation outlooks were highly uncertain and that inflation risks were skewed to the upside,” the minutes said. “Many participants assessed that (higher rates) would likely be necessary if inflation did not decline.”

Some Fed officials pointed out that “even after excluding prices of items most directly affected by tariffs and energy prices, underlying inflation appeared to be elevated,” the minutes said.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, so-called “core” prices have cooled, with annual core inflation falling to 2.5% in July, the government said last week, according to the consumer price index. Yet the Fed pays more attention to a separate gauge, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, which is running hotter than the CPI. Core PCE prices are expected to have risen 3.3% in July from a year ago, a much higher reading than CPI. Those figures will be reported Aug. 26.

N0t_5ure 12 points 8 hours ago

Don't worry, Trump will cement control over interest rates and keep them low. /s Trump has appointed 3 out of 7 of the current fed governors, and is currently looking to oust one more, Lisa Cook. The fed governors and can remove fed presidents at will. Thus, control over the board of governors is effectively control over fed rates, notwithstanding the votes of regional presidents.

path: 0 25383982, hotness: undefined, score: 12, children: 0
SaltySalamander 4 points 7 hours ago

Duh.

path: 0 25384711, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
news
news

@lemmy.world

login for more options
38870
39574
9017

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.

Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.


5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.


7. No duplicate posts.

If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.

All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

go to feed...