Some of the world’s most powerful central bankers are set to meet in the Grand Teton mountains this week, with the focus on any commentary suggesting a pullback in pandemic-era easy money policies from the Federal Reserve.
One challenge: the timeline for slowing the central bank’s $120-billion-a-month pace of asset purchases will be different depending on which Federal Open Market Committee member you ask.
Minutes from the FOMC’s late-July meeting showed “most” of the committee’s 18 members seeing the case for announcing a taper before year’s end.
“I support bringing asset purchases to an end under these conditions,” Kansas City Fed President Esther George said on Aug. 11. Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan similarly advocated for slowing purchases, as soon as the next policy-setting announcement on Sept. 22.
Other Fed officials, like Chicago Fed President Charles Evans and Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, have said they would need a few more months’ worth of data first.
