By Michael S. Derby
(Reuters) – Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee said Friday that while he’s not ready to explicitly call for a central bank rate cut, monetary policy is quite tight and is no longer aligned with current economic conditions.
“I usually don’t like saying, tying our hands before a meeting, but I’ve been saying for some time, if you take the level of tightness” now seen in the Fed’s interest rate target, “you only want to be that tight on purpose if you’re trying to cool an overheating economy, and this is not overheating,” Goolsbee said in a CNBC interview.
Goolsbee spoke on the television network after a speech earlier in the day from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, who clearly signaled the time of Fed rate cuts is fast arriving amid falling inflation pressures and rising risks to the job market.
Financial markets broadly expect a quarter percentage point cut in what is now a 5.25% to 5.5% federal funds rate next month, and some believe it could be half percentage point move if August job data, to be released in early September, shows unexpectedly levels of weakness
As Goolsbee hinted he’s likely down for rate cuts, he also noted “by almost all measures, the job market is cooling” as inflation continues to move back to 2%, a level he believes is achievable. Goolsbee also said there are “warning lights” in parts of the jobs market.