Fed's Goolsbee does not see rise in long-term yields imperiling soft landing

Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee says he sees no clear signals that the U.S. economy is veering off the "golden path" toward the Fed's 2% inflation goal and at the same time averting a recession, even as the recent surge in long-term Treasury yields has some analysts questioning exactly that.

"On the real side I feel like nothing has happened so far that is convincing evidence that we are off the golden path," Goolsbee said on Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast, recorded on Tuesday and aired on Thursday. "I still feel like this is our goal and it's still possible."

The Fed's 5.25 percentage points of interest-rate hikes over the last 18 months has helped bring inflation down from its 40-year high last summer, Goolsbee and others have noted -- so far without the surge in unemployment that usually accompanies such a trajectory.

Inflation by the Fed's preferred gauge was 3.5% in August, half its peak monthly pace last year; unemployment was 3.8% in August, compared with 3.7% a year earlier.