(Aug 6): Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis president Neel Kashkari said the US central bank should start to raise interest rates incrementally right now to curb inflation that remains too high.

“Now is the time to start slowly moving up as we get more data in,” Kashkari said on Wednesday in an interview with CNBC.

Kashkari was one of three Fed officials who dissented from the decision to hold interest rates steady at last week’s policy meeting, preferring instead to raise them by a quarter percentage point. 

In a statement released last Friday, Kashkari warned that policymakers might have to raise rates more aggressively if they wait too long and high inflation becomes entrenched. 

Kashkari said on Wednesday he’s still unsure what policy action will be appropriate at the Fed’s next meeting in September, adding that he wants to see what incoming data say about the economy. 

Asked whether the Fed could raise rates three times before the end of the year, he said, “That’s not impossible.”

“If inflation continues to move sideways or even get worse from here, then I think we’re going to have to start gradually adjusting interest rates to bring things back down,” he added.

The Minneapolis Fed chief said chairman Kevin Warsh, who took the helm of the central bank in May, has continued the tradition of calling his colleagues ahead of Federal Open Market Committee meetings. Kashkari said Warsh told him to do what he thinks is best for the economy. 

At last week’s gathering, Warsh also raised the possibility of holding fewer policy meetings, according to people familiar with the matter. Kashkari said he doesn’t believe there’s a “magic number” of meetings that’s right. 

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