Reuters reports that Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said that it could be “reasonable” to start reducing the Fed’s bond-buying program later this year, though it would depend on making further progress in the labor market.
“It is a question of when, not a question of if” the Fed will slow its bond-buying, Kashkari said. - There’s a lot of public discussion about, will it be at the end of this year, will it be the beginning of next year: Those seem like reasonable ranges of deliberation, but ultimately it will be driven by the data.”
Raising interest rates, however, is likely still a “few years” in the future, Kashkari said, because the Fed has pledged not to do so until the economy reaches full employment and inflation, now temporarily high, climbs “over time” to the Fed’s goal of 2% on average.