Fed’ Goolsbee: I see some warning signs the real economy is weakening

  • I still think the ‘golden path’ is possible
  • Higher inflation this year has mostly looked like a blip, or a bump in the road
  • If you take a step back, the arc of inflation is clearly down
  • Goods are basically back to pre-pandemic inflation, services are a bit higher ‘but within shooting distance’, the whole puzzle is housing, which is partly just mechanical
  • If we used European measures on housing inflation, we would already be at 2%
  • The evidence is that there was a lot more immigration than we thought a year ago. That makes me cautious on over-interpreting the non-farm payrolls number
  • I don’t like tying our hands, it completely depends on how inflation goes
  • The unemployment rate is up but it’s still just 4%

This is a change in tone from Goolsbee, as he expresses more worries about inflation

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com. Source