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"As
the economy gets closer to its goals, we can again pull our foot
off the gas a bit and hopefully execute a nice, soft landing
over the next couple of years," San Francisco Fed President John
Williams told the Washington Post in an interview conducted this
week.
Asked if the Fed's gradual rate increases should include any
rate hikes this year, Williams said, "In my view, it does," the
paper reported.
The Fed raised benchmark U.S. rates last December for the first
time in nearly a decade, but did not continue to lift them as it
had anticipated in order to cushion the economy from the
slowdown in China and financial market turmoil.
Williams had at the beginning of the year expected the Fed to
raise rates several times in 2016, but global events have caused
him to pencil in "a little more gradual pace of increases," he
said in the interview.
Williams is not a voter this year on the Fed's policy-setting
panel, but his comments are closely watched because his views
are seen as reflecting those of Fed Chair Janet Yellen, who was
his boss when she ran the San Francisco Fed before she moved to
Washington in 2010.
(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by James Dalgleish)
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