Fed Member Says US Economy is Ready for Interest Rate Hike

The time has come for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, a top U.S. central banker said on Thursday, citing improvements in the labor market.

“I don’t want us to be behind the curve in beginning to normalize interest rates,” Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Esther George told CNBC.

“When you see the economy getting as close as we are to full employment, to stable inflation, it would suggest to me that the time has come to do that.”

George, who will not rotate into a voting seat on the Fed’s policy-setting committee until 2016, is considered to be one of the Fed officials least tolerant of inflation.

Speaking ahead of the central bank’s monetary policy symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, George warned in several televised appearances that the Fed risked moving too slowly.

“I think a very natural response when you get to this point is worrying that you might derail the recovery,” she told Fox Business Network. “But then again we’ve seen data come in stronger than we expected.”

via Reuters

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