In an interview on PBS Newshour early Wednesday, Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee described the latest CPI as “borderline disturbing”, adding that services inflation is “not coming down”. He said the US faces “a real inflation issue”, driven by both cost-side and demand-side forces, and warned he is starting to see overheating prices across a range of goods and services. Goolsbee also said business investment is affected by interest rates, while the job market remains steady and stable.
Fed Policy Concerns and Inflation Risks
He warned that persistence could force policymakers “to come to terms with it”, and said inflation becoming embedded in expectations would be a major concern. Goolsbee reiterated that “everything is always on the table” and that the Fed must return inflation to target. A speech-tracking gauge scored his tone at 8/10, above a 6.8/10 historical average, while the FXS Fed Sentiment Index rose 1.69 points to 145.61, well above the neutral 100 level.
