Outlook 'Hardly Robust,’ Despite Gains: Fisher

While economic growth and job creation should improve this year, the outlook remains clouded as the government continues its “fiscal and regulatory misfeasance,” but further accommodation shouldn’t be needed, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas president Richard W. Fisher said Monday.

“On balance, the data indicate improving growth and prospects for job creation in 2012. However, the outlook is hardly robust and remains constrained by the fiscal and regulatory misfeasance of Congress and the executive branch and is subject to a now well-known, and likely well-discounted, list of possible exogenous shocks — the so-called tail risks —posed by possible developments of different sorts in the Middle East, Europe, China and elsewhere,” he told the Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce, according to prepared text of his speech released by the Fed.

But despite the current spike in gas prices, which hasn’t been seen in the personal consumption expenditure and consumer price indexes, “the underlying trend has been converging toward the 2% long-term goal” of the Federal Open Market Committee. Fisher did say the rise in prices could show those reports for February.

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