The Federal Reserve has spent much of the past 18 months treating tariffs and energy costs as shocks that would eventually fade.
Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee is now questioning whether that patience remains defensible.
Speaking at an Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum event on Monday, Goolsbee said that supply shocks are proving to have a more persistent influence and can't be ignored when setting monetary policy
Goolsbee's concern is not simply that oil, tariffs and commodities raised prices.
It is that these shocks keep lasting longer than expected, while strong spending and artificial intelligence investment may be adding a second source of inflation.
Why Goolsbee's Inflation Warning Matters
Supply shocks normally create a difficult choice for central banks.
Higher rates cannot produce more oil or remove a trade bottleneck, so policymakers often wait for the price impact to pass.
Goolsbee said the post-pandemic experience has challenged that approach. Supply disruptions have become more frequent, while their inflationary effects have proved more persistent.
The Fed therefore needs evidence that those pressures are fading before it can credibly forecast inflation returning to 2%, he said.
The longer price growth remains elevated, the greater the risk that businesses and consumers adjust their behavior in response.
AI Investment Could Complicate The Fed's Job
Goolsbee also raised a less obvious possibility: America's AI investment boom may be pushing demand beyond what the economy can comfortably supply.
Data centers require construction labor, power, equipment and financing.
Rapid spending across those areas can support growth, but it can also intensify competition for scarce resources.
That would turn part of the inflation problem from a supply disruption into traditional demand overheating.
"If demand overheats, there is no ambiguity about how the Fed needs to respond," he said.
Inflation was most recently estimated at 3.4% for August, against the Fed's 2% target, with little recent improvement.
In that setting, Goolsbee said, the only way back is "the hard way," meaning higher rates and the risk of slower growth and weaker hiring.
The Fed's own projections point the same way.
Of the 18 officials submitting forecasts, 12 expect one more quarter-point hike this year and four expect two more. The median projection for year-end rates rose to 4.1% from 3.8% in June.
October Fed Hike Odds Remain Above 50%
The Fed lifted its target range by 25 basis points last week to 3.75%-4%, its first increase in three years.
Traders assigned a 53% probability to another quarter-point increase at the October meeting, according to CME FedWatch.
On Monday, yields on the 10-year Treasury bond eased by 5 basis points to 4.95% as oil prices retreated.
The 2-year yield slipped about 1 basis point to 4.729%, and the 30-year yield dropped 3 basis points to 5.306%.
The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NASDAQ: TLT) closed Friday at $81.25, marking its lowest weekly close since the fund's 2002 launch.