Fed's George softens rate hike stance

[August 27, 2015]  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Esther George, who has been arguing for a near-term U.S. rate hike, said the Fed should now take a "wait and see" approach to hiking borrowing costs due to financial volatility and China's economic slowdown.

"Given what we've seen recently, I think we just have to wait and see," George told Fox Business Network in an interview that aired on Thursday.

While softening her stance, George made clear she was not ruling out the possibility she would support a rate increase as early as September. "I don’t want to take too much signal from something that could turn out to be noise. I don’t want to overreact to short-term data that may not in the long term really turn out to be significant for that kind of decision," she said.

(Reporting by Timothy Ahmann; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
 

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