MNI: Bullard Says Fed Should Move Rates Above 5% Quickly

The FOMC should keep raising rates aggressively in order to get them as quickly as possible to a level that will restrict economic activity, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said Wednesday, pushing back against the need to slow the pace of rate hikes to a quarter point on Feb. 1 as many of his colleagues have indicated and markets are pricing.

"There is something to be said for moving the policy rate to the right level as quickly as we can. We’re almost into a zone that you could call restrictive, we’re not quite there yet,” Bullard said in a Q&A with The Wall Street Journal. “You kind of have to get over 5% to say with a straight face that we’ve got the right level of the policy rate that will continue to bring inflation down,” he said. (See MNI: Fed Rates Likely Headed Above 5% Despite Cooling CPI)