The only thing missing were the emojis. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari on Friday fielded questions in a live exchange with followers on Twitter, mixing monetary policy and macro-economics with NFL smack-talk.
#AskNeel. He got straight into serious policy questions, revealing he's closer to the leading doves on the Federal Open Market Committee than those calling for rate hikes. Specifically, he said the Fed can more easily deal with inflation that is too high than inflation that's too low.
He's also not particularly worried that ultra-low rates are feeding into financial bubbles, at least not in housing.
At the same time, he's not as eager as San Francisco Fed President John Williams to consider raising the Fed's 2% inflation target.
Sticking with inflation, Kashkari expressed some worry the Fed was not pushing hard enough to bring it back up to the Fed's 2% target, which he stressed is not supposed to represent a ceiling for policymakers.
Regarding his economic outlook, he said he estimates potential GDP growth, in the long-run, to be a little below 2%. That's in line with the median projection among Fed policy makers.
He recognized, however, that pulling that potential growth rate up is largely out of the control of the Fed.
But it wasn't all interest rates. Kashkari, who has more than 12,000 Twitter followers, confessed his most important loyalties lie with a certain accursed football team in his native Ohio, before taking a shot at a somewhat more successful NFL franchise of late.
He also expressed his regret over not being able to include little yellow smiley faces.
Kashkari closed by promising to hit the twitter-sphere again. For the full Q&A, go to @neelkashkari.
