Boston Fed Chief Says Higher Unemployment Needed to Tame Inflation

The new president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Susan Collins, stated in her first public speech that unemployment needed to be increased to lower historically high inflation.

Collins further suggested any economic downturn would likely be modest, in the Sept. 25 speech to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.

Her comments add to similar remarks made by her colleagues, like Raphael Bostic, President of the Atlanta Fed, who spoke on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sept. 25.

Collins said the American economy is strong enough to withstand the aggressive interest rates hikes by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation, which is at a 40-year high and suggested that prices “perhaps may have peaked.”

Consumer prices rose 8.3 percent in August from a year earlier as inflation continues to rise, after hitting a high of 9.1 percent in June.

Collins, who was sworn in during July, is one of 12 voting members of the Fed’s policymaking committee…. (Excerpt from The Epoch Times)