Economy
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A member of the American Central Bank: There is no decrease in inflation and prices are not under control. This is our position on raising interest rates
Washington – Qena
Michelle Bowman, a member of the Federal Reserve’s policy committee, warned today that recent data does not provide evidence of a decline in inflation in the United States, noting that recent US inflation and employment data did not convince her that price pressures are under control, in The time you left the door open to vote for more rate hikes.
She said she wanted to see more data before deciding whether to vote to keep rates at their current level when the committee meets in June.
The British newspaper “Financial Times” quoted Bowman as saying that the US central bank’s attempt to tighten financial conditions and curb the economy had the “desired” effect, but stopped short of endorsing a temporary halt in raising interest rates.
The voting member of the Fed’s Policy Setting Committee confirmed that if inflation remains high, additional monetary policy tightening is likely to be appropriate to reach a sufficiently restrictive stance.
Earlier this month, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell sent a strong signal that the central bank is preparing to delay another rate hike next month, after raising the benchmark interest rate above 5 per cent at its latest meeting.
Bowman’s comments suggest Powell will need to forge consensus around what appears to be an increasingly divided committee, and other voting members such as Chicago Fed’s Austin Goolsby also seem more concerned about the credit crunch.
Bowman warned her colleagues about the sudden backlash after the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and other lenders.. She said that the implementation of the new rules and regulations should not take place until after a deeper investigation into what went wrong.
It called for a new review by an independent third party to “supplement” what it called the “limited internal review” published by Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Michael Barr late last month.
The annual inflation rate in the United States of America witnessed a slowdown, during the month of March, to 5 percent, compared to the level of 6 percent in February 2023.
The Fed’s move comes as a continuation of the monetary tightening measures that it started last year, which included seven consecutive increases (four of them by 75 basis points, two in May and December by half a percentage point, and one by a quarter of a percentage point in March), at a time when inflation pressures persisted during the past year. recent months.
