Waller Sees Recession Fears Overblown

(Paraphrasing from the NABE event)

A lot of concern about overtightening and possibly causing a recession but remember that inflation is a tax on economic activity so if we don’t get inflation under control it can put us in a really bad economic outcome down the road. The committee really understands this so the worries that there’s going to be a stop and go policy like in the 1970s is just not going to happen.

Despite some of the [negative] news on GDP, we got a good PMI services which is what you’d expect with the rotation back to services. On that side of the economy, we’re seeing good things. With the labour market, vacancies are still nearly 2:1 and forecasts are for a pretty decent jobs report in the 275k which is phenomenal in a historical perspective. Some of the fears of recession are overblown. Probability models are not even 50%, or less depending on model. The slight yield curve inversion doesn’t give me a lot of support that it means anything right now.