Key Takeaways From Minutes of Fed's June Interest-Rate Meeting
- Policy makers on the Federal Open Market Committee were prepared, if necessary, to eventually raise interest rates to levels deemed particularly restrictive to the economy in order to crush red-hot inflation.
- There's no indication policy makers favored a 75 basis- point hike at the July meeting later this months, as markets expect: the minutes said “participants judged that an increase of 50 or 75 basis points would likely be appropriate at the next meeting,” consistent with Chair Jerome Powell's comments at the June 15 press conference.
- At the time, there was some concern that economic growth and the labor market were cooling, but officials were much more worried that inflation was at increasing risk of becoming “entrenched” at higher levels.
- Officials explicitly acknowledged they were willing to accept the price of a slowing economy in order to tame inflation.
- Kansas City Fed President Esther George, the only voting policy maker (out of 11) to dissent from the 75 basis-point hike -- she preferred 50 basis points -- had no company among the FOMC's seven nonvoting members: The minutes said only “one participant,” referring to George, favored a half-point increase.
(Bloomberg) --
Read More: Bloomberg's TOPLive blog on the FOMC minutes
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