Fed's Fisher says not certain inflation will ease

By Alister Bull

HOUSTON (Reuters) - U.S. economic growth is softening amid still fragile financial markets but it is not clear that this will curb inflation as hoped, a top Federal Reserve official said on Thursday.

"While it seems pretty clear that economic momentum is slowing, the jury is out on whether lesser momentum will be sufficient to translate into relief on the price front over the intermediate to longer term," Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher told a business luncheon.

"It is pretty clear that trend consumer price inflation has accelerated over the past few months," said Fisher, who has voted against interest rate cuts or in favor of monetary policy tightening at every Fed rate-setting meeting this year.

A stronger dollar and lower oil prices would appear to be taking some of the pressure off of import and energy costs, but Fisher said that it was too early to tell if this would help to bring down inflation.

"First of all, you don't know how long it will last," he told reporters after the speech.

"I do think it is 50/50 odds that the kind of pressures that we saw coming on the price front from these high commodity prices ... might well pass through the economy and not leave the stain of intermediate and long-term inflation. On the other hand, it might," Fisher said.

Despite Fisher's concern over inflation, the U.S. central bank is expected to hold benchmark overnight rates steady at 2 percent at its next policy meeting on Sept. 16.

The Fed halted an aggressive rate-cutting campaign this year after slashing borrowing costs by 3.25 percentage points to shield the economy from a collapsing housing market.

It has signaled it will be patient despite high inflation in waiting for growth to rebuild, based on an assessment that the weakened economy will cap price pressures.

Fisher made plain this outcome, or a less favorable situation where higher prices get embedded into expectations for inflation in the future, were far from certain.

"The jury is still very much out as to which scenario will obtain. The most recent inflation reports are not particularly encouraging," he said.

On the other hand, he was pretty downbeat on the economic outlook in his speech.

"Consumption expenditures, real capital expenditures and construction show the third quarter off to a weak start, although yesterday's manufacturing numbers were a nice surprise on the upside," he said. July factory orders rose a stronger than expected 1.3 percent, data released on Wednesday showed.

"I think it is very likely we will suffer anemic growth for the current and perhaps the next couple of quarters," he said.

He also said credit markets still had not recovered from their shock over massive subprime mortgage losses.

"I think substantial progress is being made. Without getting into specifics, I think still more has to be made, but we're in the process of healing. It is just, I think, going to take some time," he told reporters.

At the outset of his remarks, Fisher warned the audience that he would not comment on the presidential election. But he did have a warning for both Democratic hopeful Sen. Barack Obama and his Republican rival Sen. John McCain.

"If we want to keep growing the United States' share of the global market for services, we must resist the siren call of protectionism ... I hope both presidential candidates and both political parties will bear this in mind," he said.