In recent years, Waller has been a hawk—a central banker who worries more about high inflation than high unemployment in setting interest rates. In retrospect, the analysis by Waller and a fellow Fed economist “looks quite prescient," said Jonathan Pingle, a former Fed economist who is now chief U.S. economist at UBS. Inside the Fed, Waller had begun pushing for an earlier exit to the central bank’s ultra-easy stimulus policies. Staff briefings to senior Fed officials followed, including one by Andrew Figura, a Fed economist who specializes in labor dynamics, suggesting the Beveridge curve wasn’t stable. In 2019, Trump was upset that the Fed wasn’t cutting rates faster but struggled to get the Senate to confirm a loyalist to the Fed board.

Source: Wall Street Journal February 28, 2024 11:09 UTC