By CNBC.com staff
A member of the U.S. central bank's monetary policy committee told CNBC
he believed global developments are preventing the world's largest
economy from returning to normalized interest rates.
John Williams, President & CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San
Francisco, told CNBC on Monday that the U.S. economy was doing "quite
well," pointing to stable inflation and strong employment growth.
"The real issue is the global
financial and economic developments, there's uncertainty about what's
happening around the world and how that feeds back to the dollar and the
U.S. economy," he told 'Asia Squawk Box.'
Williams serves on the Federal Open Market Committee but is not one of the voting members.
He reiterated that the central bank's policy decisions would remain data dependent, singling out inflation as one of the Fed's top concerns.
"We've
been missing our 2 percent inflation goal for three and a half years or
so, global disinflationary factors are still holding inflation
down...The data to me isn't so much about the labor market continuing
to improve, I'm very positive on that, it's more about inflation moving
back to 2 percent in the context of very strong headwinds," he
explained, citing the strong dollar and low commodity prices.
"We have a domestic
mandate...but that said, we understand that we're in a global economy so
what happens in Brazil or China has a huge impact on the U.S. in terms
of our inflation and employment goals."
Unlike in Europe and Japan however,
slow inflation won't push the Fed to introduce a negative interest rate
policy (NIRP), Williams noted, adding that the U.S. has other policy
tools at its disposal, including quantitative easing and forward
guidance.
"We're in a very different situation where we''ll be raising interest rates over the next few years and we're in much stronger economic position [than Europe or Japan] so it's not a tool that I see us using."
His
remarks come as global markets seek clarity from Federal Reserve
officials for clues on whether the central bank will hike rates at its
April policy meeting.
Expectations
of an increase have risen following hawkish commentary from several
members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) last week, including
Williams.
Atlanta Fed President Dennis
Lockhart and Williams both believe a hike during the scheduled April
26-27 review is warranted, while St. Louis Fed President James Bullard
said "the next rate increase may not be far off."
The comments spooked Wall Street however, as it contradicted Fed Chair Janet Yellen's dovish-sounding statement earlier in March.
When asked about the mixed policy messages, Williams insisted that the FOMC was united in its vision.
"I
would say there's broad agreement on the committee that our basic
strategy, which is to gradually remove policy accommodation and raise
interest rates over the next couple of years, has strong support. The
real question is when we should raise rates, what pace we should raise
rates. That's going to be driven by the data so we'll have to wait and
see."
Markets will now be paying close
attention to Yellen's speech at the Economic Club of New York on
Tuesday as well as Fed Vice-Chair William Dudley's address on Thursday
for further hints on the central bank's outlook.
Friday's employment report will also be scrutinized for proof of the economic recovery. Societe Generale (Euronext Paris: GLE-FR) expects at least 24,900 jobs were created in March, which would mark an improvement from February's 24,200.
Clarification: This article has been updated since first published to show that Williams is not a voting member of the FOMC.
1 則留言:
美國現在失業率只是4.9%, 只是大多都是低薪工作, 人們賺不夠多, 少洗錢, 通脹就不會拉高. 所以, 美國沒有可能狂加息, 除非有突發的供求失衡吧!
美國通脹要升高過2%, 這5年內都不會有可能, 加息就只會是用來調控其他方面, 也不會加得多.
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