Fed Chair Powell vows to raise rates to fight inflation 'until the job is done'

cnbc.com:

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in an appearance Thursday emphasized the importance of getting inflation down now before the public gets too used to higher prices and comes to expect them as the norm.

In his latest comments underlining his commitment to the inflation fight, Powell said expectations play an important role and were critical to why inflation was so persistent in the 1970s and '80s.

«History cautions strongly against prematurely loosening policy,» the central bank leader said in a Q&A presented by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank based in Washington, D.C. «I can assure you that my colleagues and I are strongly committed to this project and we will keep at it until the job is done.»

The event was Powell's last scheduled public appearance before the Fed's next meeting on Sept. 20-21.

Markets largely took the comments in stride, with major averages little changed in the early going on Wall Street. Treasury yields were mostly higher, with the two-year note, the most sensitive to Fed rate hikes, rising by nearly 5 basis points to 3.49%. A basis point is 0.01 percentage points.

The Fed has raised benchmark interest rates four times this year, with the fed funds rate now set in a range between 2.25%-2.50%.

Markets widely expect the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee to enact a third consecutive 0.75 percentage point increase when it meets later this month. In fact, that probability rose to 86% during Powell's remarks, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tracker of fed funds futures bets.

One reason for acting aggressively is to make sure that inflation running around its highest rate in more than 40 years doesn't become ingrained in the public consciousness, Powell said.

«The Fed has