James Bullard Says Jobs Data Changes Nothing

He may have only been trying to talk up the greenback, but St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said that the latest jobs report doesn't change any plans to hike the Fed Funds rate:

[He] told reporters after a speech at the Global Interdependence Center the December jobs report showing 85,000 jobs were shed and unemployment steady at 10 percent would not change the Fed's policy.

"It was different from expectations but not far enough to really change assessments of policy," said Bullard, who votes on the U.S. central bank's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) this year.

"I do think we'll see positive job growth in the first part of 2010," Bullard said.

Whatever the intentions of the FOMC, he's stated his own. He also believes that inflation won't resume in a serious way until two to four years after the Fed exits from its quantitative-easing program, which should be the main Fed worry right now.

As of now, perhaps surprisingly, Bullard's an inflation dove.