Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester gives closing remarks onsite before hybrid Inflation: Drivers and Dynamics Conference 2023 in Frankfurt, Germany. She's well-traveled at the moment as she spoke at Jackson Hole a week ago.
- Job market still strong amid signs of rebalancing
- 3.8% jobless rate is still low
- Main Fed debate is how restrictive policy needs to become and for how long.
- Future policy decisions will be based on incoming data
- Fed must balance risks when setting rate policy
The shorter version of this is that they don't know where the economy is at this point and they're going to want some time to sort it out. Rate hikes are done for now but they will maintain a hawkish bias until they're sure that inflation is cooked.