Williams speaking with media after his earlier speech (Fed's Williams: Gradual rate hikes appropriate over next two years)
- Sees one more rate hike later this year, three next year, a little bit more in 2019
- Says long-run inflation expectations don't necessarily signal Fed is making a mistake
- Says he is strongly against replacing inflation target with a range
- Says setting a range for Fed's inflation goal could allow expectations to drift to lower bound of range
- Need a strong economy to offset low inflation
- Fed needs QE, forward guidance as future policy options
- Says ruling out qe as a future policy option could change inflation expectations significantly
John Williams is head of the Federal Reserve branch in San Francisco