Powell acknowledges "some progress" in the fight against inflation

Fed Chairman Condemns Assassination of Donald Trump, Says Violence Has No Place in Society

15 Jul. () –

US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has acknowledged “some progress” on the inflation front during the second quarter of the year, after three better readings on price developments, adding some confidence to the central bank.

In a conversation with David Rubenstein, president of the Economic Club of Washington, the American central banker acknowledged that, unlike what happened in the first quarter, between April and June “some more progress” had been made regarding inflation.

“We’ve now had three better readings. If you average them out, it’s a pretty good pace,” Powell said, adding that the pace has not yet come at which the bank has confidence that inflation will begin to decline sustainably to 2%.

“I would say we’re not there yet,” Powell said, although, having failed to gain any additional confidence in the first quarter, he believes the three second-quarter readings, including last week’s, “do add some confidence.”

In any case, the Fed chairman has stressed that he will not send “any signal in any direction regarding any particular meeting,” merely reiterating the institution’s commitment to make its decisions based on data and without regard to political considerations.

In any case, Powell has reiterated that the Fed will not wait until the inflation rate is at 2% before starting to cut interest rates.

In this regard, he pointed out that waiting until inflation fell to 2% would probably mean “waiting too long.” “We have been very clear that we would not wait for inflation to fall to 2%,” he stressed.

CONDEMNS THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON TRUMP.

The Fed chairman also condemned the attempted assassination last Saturday of Donald Trump, who had nominated him as chairman of the US central bank in 2017.

“It was a very sad day for our country,” said Powell, who believes political violence “has no place in our society” and condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms.”