Worries about consumer prices have still abounded throughout the week. As the forum began, former Swiss central bank chief Philipp Hildebrand – vice chair of BlackRock – worried that inflation could turn out to be “stubbornly sticky” and predicted “not many, if any” US rate reductions. Ken Rogoff, once a chief economist at the IMF, said that the “odds of a hike as good as the odds of a cut”.
People watch US President Donald Trump speak via video link to the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos on January 23. Photo: Xinhua
That’s not an outlook Trump is likely to welcome. Speaking by video to the forum on Thursday, he pledged to the biggest tax cut in US history, repeated threats
of tariffs, called on
Saudi Arabia and
Opec to “bring down the cost of oil”, and added that when that happens, “I’ll demand that interest rates drop immediately.”
The Saudi Arabian economy chief, Faisal Alibrahim, didn’t rise to that demand when speaking on the panel. Meanwhile Fink, though perhaps less hawkish than Hildebrand or Rogoff, said the outlook does not promise much in the way of easing from the US Federal Reserve.