JACKSON, Tenn. — One university welcomed a prominent financial leader to speak to several guests about the future of our economy.
Union University partnered with the Jackson Chamber of Commerce to welcome Jim Bullard, the President and CEO of the Federal Reserve of St. Louis, to discuss economic updates and where our economy is headed.
“The Chamber of Commerce is always looking at economic development and helping the community, particularly the business leaders in the community understand the dynamics of the economy better. And this is just part of our effort to partner with the Chamber to help make that happen,” said Dub Oliver, the President of Union University.
Several government agencies and banks were in attendance, like the Jackson Energy Authority, Cadence Bank, First Bank, the Jackson Chamber and others.
“Of course everyone watches the Federal Reserve,” Oliver said. “I have been watching with concern about the rise in interest rates, and I’m confident he’s going to talk about that and help us understand little bit more of their thinking that we might then predict how things are going to go in the future.”
Bullard spoke about disinflation and its progress and prospects. He touched on current and future interest rates, inflation, labor market, GDP growth and more.
“Front loaded fed policy last year. We started raising rates last March, and we raised at the fastest pace we’ve seen in a couple of decades, and that has helped a lot to put us on a disinflationary track,” Bullard said.
According to Bullard, this is the highest we’ve seen inflation since the 1980s. He says inflation is still high, but it is slowly on the decline.
“We can lock in this disinflationary trend to continue to have this policy rate increases during 2023 even though the real economy looks like it’s going to continue to grow, and the labor market, broadly, across the country looks like it will remain strong,” he said.
You can see more about the presentation here.
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