The newly appointed Federal Reserve voting member, Powell, recently stated that there is no need to rush to cut interest rates in the short term. She supports maintaining the current interest rate decision in January, believing that the current rate level is quite helpful in steadily pushing inflation down.

Regarding the future direction, Powell expects that by the end of the year, inflation will make significant progress toward the 2% target. However, rate cuts won't happen too quickly; she prefers to wait until the later part of the year, and it also depends on two conditions—either a significant easing of inflationary pressures or an unexpected deterioration in the employment market.

Interestingly, she is actually more concerned about employment than inflation. This suggests the Fed's cautious attitude toward a soft landing for the economy, and the probability of short-term easing policies being implemented is not very high.