{"text":[[{"start":8.783,"text":"Many US central bankers are concerned that persistently high inflation will lead to rapid price rises becoming embedded in the world’s largest economy, minutes of the Federal Reserve’s latest policy vote highlight."}],[{"start":20.24,"text":"The minutes, published on Wednesday, say that “many” members of the Fed’s policy-setting panel “highlighted the possibility that, after several years of inflation above 2 per cent, continued elevated inflation rates could begin to affect inflation expectations and wage- and price-setting decisions”."}],[{"start":37.6,"text":"The debate about inflation, which has remained above the Fed’s target for more than five years, comes as Donald Trump’s Iran war has sparked a fresh rise in costs across the US economy. Rate-setters have been fiercely debating whether to raise borrowing costs to ease price pressures."}],[{"start":54.2,"text":"The Fed chose to hold US borrowing costs within a 3.5-3.75 per cent range at its July meeting — its fifth meeting in a row without a change in policy. Markets are currently pricing in only a one-in-four chance the central bank raises rates by the end of 2026, after an inflation report that came following the July meeting showed a modest slowdown in price growth."}],[{"start":77.16,"text":"While a majority of nine members backed the decision to hold, three voters — Cleveland Fed president Beth Hammack, Dallas’s Lorie Logan and Neel Kashkari of Minneapolis — called for the central bank to raise borrowing costs by a quarter point."}],[{"start":91.2,"text":"Those calls come amid concerns that price pressures in the US economy were “broad based” and not solely down to factors such as Trump’s tariffs on US imports and even the Iran war that could prove temporary."}],[{"start":102.76,"text":"A few of those who support rate rises think acting sooner rather than later will lessen the chances of the Fed eventually needing to make steeper increases in borrowing costs."}],[{"start":112.16,"text":"The minutes show that other regional Fed presidents, who sit on the Federal Open Market Committee but do not hold a vote this year, also supported a rise in borrowing costs and that others on the committee signalled they would back a rate rise in September should price pressures remain strong."}],[{"start":127.12,"text":"“Many participants assessed that policy tightening would likely be necessary if inflation did not decline,” the minutes said. The committee “generally thought that the information that would accumulate in the intermeeting period could provide more clarity, and correspondingly reduce uncertainty, about the inflation outlook”."}],[{"start":152.88,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1787190519_4122.mp3"}