Will we get less gloom and doom from Jay Powell at Jackson Hole?
Will we get less gloom and doom from Jay Powell at Jackson Hole?
The Federal Reserve’s Economic Policy Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, gets underway on August 24. Fed Chair Jerome Powell is expected to attend and speak at the meeting.
Powell brought down the hammer in last year’s speech, warning of economic pain twice. His speech was short but not especially sweet. “While higher interest rates, slower growth and softer labor market conditions will bring down inflation, they will also bring some pain to households and businesses,” he had said.
For Chris Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS, it was “kind of like, ‘Dad is mad.’”
Last year, Rupkey said that Powell wanted to remind us that the road back to the Fed’s target of 2% inflation was long. Now, Rupkey said he’d be shocked if Powell said a rate hike was definitely on the table at the Fed’s September meeting.
“The Fed may be closer to the end certainly than the beginning, and I would expect Powell’s speech to reflect that,” said Rupkey.
After all, the consumer price index has gone from peaking at about 9% last year to about 3% now, noted Stony Brook University economist Stephanie Kelton.
Here’s what she’d like to hear from Powell: “Inflation has come down significantly since we were together last year. Let’s all go fishing.”
But she expects that Powell will say there could be more rate hikes depending — as usual — on the data.
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