A post by @FirstSquawk on X.

New York Fed President John Williams said that trying to force overall prices back down to their pre-pandemic level would risk disrupting the economy, signaling the central bank will judge inflation progress by the ongoing rate of price increases rather than the cumulative rise since 2020. The remark pushes back on the view that the Fed must engineer an outright decline in the price level to restore affordability, a stance that could shape how aggressively policymakers respond to sticky inflation. It matters because it frames the debate over whether the Fed tolerates elevated nominal prices as the cost of avoiding a sharper slowdown. Watch next for whether other Fed officials echo Williams and for incoming inflation data that could test the case for further rate moves.