Fed’s Lacker Sees 2013 Growth of 3% Warranting Higher Rates

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker said U.S. economic growth will probably accelerate to about 3 percent next year, warranting an increase in the central bank’s benchmark interest rate.

“The logical time to raise rates is going to be sometime next year,” Lacker, a voting member on the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee this year, said today in a Bloomberg Television interview. “That’s based on my sense that growth is going to pick up enough by then in order to warrant raising rates to keep inflation pressures under control.”