FED: Chicago's Goolsbee Sounds Increasingly Cautious, Auguring Later Cuts (1/2)

Chicago Fed Pres Goolsbee (2025 FOMC voter, most dovish Committee member per MNI's Hawk-Dove Spectrum) on CNBC makes the first Fed commentary after the March meeting, and he doesn't sound at all like he's pushing hard for rate cuts anytime soon: "At the end of the day, I still think that the Fed needs to be the steady hand and take the long view. I understand why the market wants to get the information as rapidly as possible and wants to know by Monday morning or by the end of today, what's going to be the path for rates, for tariffs, for fiscal policy for the entire rest of the year, but it's not realistic at this moment. The markets go up, the markets go down, they got a lot of short run, volatility, if you take the longer view I still think that there's a lot of strength in the hard numbers on the economy."

• His growth/rate outlook again seems to temper his previous expectations that rates would be "a fair bit" lower in 12-18 months: "I still think the economy is resilient, and if we get past this bumpy period of some uncertainty, I still think that there is - when the unemployment rate and the job market are settled in at what looks like full employment - if we can continue to make progress on inflation over the long run, I believe that rates 12 to 18 months from now, will be lower than where they are today."
• But he adds that he expects those cuts to be back-loaded: "waiting isn't free in that you gain information, but you lose the ability to move gradually. So I think the longer you wait, the cuts when they come are going to be back loaded, and so that's why I say 12 to 18 months from now I think rates are lower, but in this period right now, we just have to wait."
• To contextualize Goolsbee's comments: we know from the Dot Plot that he saw at most 3 cuts this year (the lowest 2 Dots of 19 had 3.6% at end-2025, vs a committee median of 3.9%), and it's a decent bet he also sees another 3x cuts in 2026 (the lowest 3 of 19 were at 2.9%, vs a Committee median of 3.4%). But judging from his comments this morning, those 2025 cuts will be "back loaded". Now, he may no longer be the Committee's biggest dove - he's been changing his tone since tariff etc policy shifts started coming into view - but we take this as a sign that FOMC participants aren't close to cutting rates.
• Goolsbee wasn't explicit about his exact rate path but if it's truly back-loaded, with 3 cuts in the last 3 meetings of the year, that would suggest the earliest meeting that is seriously being eyed by the Committee for a cut is September (compared to market expectations of 2x cuts through September), unless there are clear signs of recession in the "hard data".