“We’re not going to fix our economy until we get our hands around the virus,” he said. “We might just have this uneven crawling back up to more of a normal economy.”
All three presidents said negative interest rates are unlikely to be a tool the Fed would rely on anytime soon, with Bullard citing the experience of their use in Europe and Japan. Asset purchases are a more likely tool, Bullard said.
Speaking on CNN International, Kaplan said that if the U.S. reaches the Fed’s expected peak unemployment rate of about 20% and if the figure is about 10% by year-end, “there may well need to be more fiscal stimulus in order to boost economic growth.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.