Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee expressed a cautious optimism in an interview with Marketplace Radio yesterday, noting that the focal point of discussions surrounding interest rates might soon shift.
Goolsbee acknowledged “overall level of inflation is still above where we want to be.” Despite the circumstances, he demonstrated a semblance of confidence that “There’s a growing confidence that we can pull it off.”
However, he asserted that the achievement wasn’t set in stone, adding a note of caution: “that’s not a guarantee.”
Goolsbee foresees a change in narrative in the coming times. Instead of deliberating on the scale of rate hikes, he envisaged that the discourse would gravitate towards the duration for which rates should be maintained at the established levels to steer the economy back on the desired path.
Putting it succinctly, he remarked, “We are very rapidly approaching the time when our argument is not going to be about how high should the rates go.”
Elaborating on this, he stated, “it’s going to be an argument of how long do we need to keep the rates at this position before we’re sure that we’re on the path back to the target.”
