Fed now doing damage control with NYT hit-piece after realizing that JPOW’s dovish statement will make inflation fight harder.

In NYT, one of the Fed's most dovish, Kashkari, says officials are ‘a long way’ from backing off inflation fight.

Neel Kashkari, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, suggested on Friday that markets had gotten ahead of themselves in anticipating that the central bank — which has been raising interest rates swiftly this year — would soon begin to back off.

“I’m surprised by markets’ interpretation,” Mr. Kashkari said in an interview. “The committee is united in our determination to get inflation back down to 2 percent, and I think we’re going to continue to do what we need to do until we are convinced that inflation is well on its way back down to 2 percent — and we are a long way away from that.”

Given that fact, Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said policymakers would now set rates meeting by meeting rather than committing to a broad plan well in advance. Investors took that as a sign that the central bank was likely to slow rate moves sharply in the coming months as the economy slows. In fact, bond market pricing suggests that investors think officials may even begin to cut interest rates next year.

“I don’t know what the bond market is looking at in reaching that conclusion,” Mr. Kashkari said, adding that the bar would be “very, very high” to lower rates.