For Esther George, the former Kansas City Fed president and one of the most reliably hawkish voices to ever sit on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, Americans making long-horizon financial decisions should stop expecting relief from borrowing costs, and instead, start preparing for them to rise.
“If I were someone planning with that kind of horizon, I’d plan for higher rates coming ahead,” George told Fortune’s Catherina Gioino. George, when asked directly whether she would cut rates, answered almost as quickly as the predictions for Warsh have come rolling in: “No I would not.”
“Inflation is a problem right now, and it’s been a problem for a while in the United States,” she said. “The real choices they’re looking at is, can we hold and see inflation fall? Are we going to have to raise rates? And I think there’s probably a good chance that you’ll have to talk seriously about raising rates, not cutting.”
Context: President Trump has long called for interest rate cuts and his nomination of Warsh came with that exhortation. If the Fed hikes, expect Trump to react negatively.
The contrarian view for Fed rate cuts: Payrolls will weaken, inflation will plunge, and Kevin Warsh was ‘largely performative’ in his hawkishness - Jason Ma
