The Federal Reserve is expected by most to slightly raise USA interest rates. Fed Chair Janet Yellen will hold a press conference after the FOMC meeting concludes.
Dallas Federal Reserve President Robert Kaplan on Friday signaled the decision to raise rates earlier this year was, for him at least, a tough decision in light of weak inflation readings in recent months. Kaplan voted for the rate rise while Kashkari dissented, as he did against the Fed's hike in March.
The U.S. also needs to "come to grips" with immigration reform, he said, because immigrants have historically been big contributors to U.S. labor force growth.
The US unemployment rate fell to a 16-year low of 4.3 percent in May, but the Fed's preferred measure of underlying inflation has been running below target for more than five years and in April slowed a second month to 1.5 percent. "But I'm basically saying that before I'd be comfortable taking the next step in raising the fed funds rate, I'm going to want to see more evidence that we're making progress in reaching our 2 percent inflation objective".
Paul Casey rallies after triple-bogey for share of US Open lead
A superb chip to three feet set up the birdie on the 597-yard first hole before he then demolished the short par-four second. Day and McIlroy were left feeling pretty empty, as each had arrived to Wisconsin nearly a week ago with high expectations.
"And even though the Fed admitted that inflation had "declined recently" it doesn't appear too concerned at this stage regarding that trend and still expects inflation to normalize near its 2% target in the medium term, although it is monitoring it "closely"..." The well-anticipated 25 bp hike was delivered and the dot plot of rate projections showed little change to the median, suggesting one more hike this year, and three more in 2018 and in 2019.
Still, Kashkari, who ran the Treasury's bank bailout program during the 2007-2009 financial crisis, said the level of concern he feels now is "no comparison" to the feeling he had back then.
"The outcome that the current FOMC is so focused on avoiding, high inflation of the 1970s, may actually be leading us to repeat some of the same mistakes the FOMC made in the 1970s: a faith-based belief in the Phillips curve and an underappreciation of the role of expectations", Kashkari said in his essay. Of the Fed's dual mandate of fostering maximum employment and price stability, inflation has remained the laggard and a lowering of the inflation outlook casts a shadow on the timing of the next rate hike.
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