MNI BRIEF: Fed's Goolsbee Says Rates On Normalization Path
U.S. interest rates are set to come down this year if inflation reports stay as good as they've been over the past several months, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said Monday.
"We've had seven months of really quite good inflation reports right around or even below the Fed's target. So if we just keep getting more data like what we have gotten, we should well be on the path to normalization," Goolsbee told Bloomberg Television in an interview.
Despite very positive labor market and GDP reports, the economy may not be overheating in the traditional sense, he added. Productivity may be higher and and unwinding of supply shocks can boost economic activity and bring inflation down at the same time, he said. (See: MNI INTERVIEW: Fed Could Cut By May, Inflation Lingers-Kaplan)