Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker said in an FT interview, “I currently have three increases in for this year, and I’d be very open to starting in March. I’d be open to more if that’s required.”

“We don’t want to put the brakes on completely, but we do need to slow down some of the demand,” he said. “We can do something . . . by raising the fed funds rate.”

“Ultimately, what we worry about is that people start to think, ‘Well, inflation is just not going to be at 2 per cent, it’s going to be at 2.5 per cent or 3 per cent going forward’,” he said.

As for the balance sheet run-off, Harker said if could start once interest rates were “sufficiently away” from zero. “I am very much in the camp of communicating over and over how we’re going to do this and then being methodical,” he said.

San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said inflation is “uncomfortably high” in the US. And, it’s time to “start removing some of the accommodation we’ve been giving to the economy,”

“I definitely see rate increases coming, as early as March even,” she noted. But she didn’t want to predict the number of rate hikes needed for this year.

In the nomination hearing for Fed Vice Chair position, Lael Brainard said, “we are seeing the strongest rebound in growth and decline in unemployment of any recovery in the past five decades.”

“But inflation is too high, and working people around the country are concerned about how far their paychecks will go,” she added. “Our monetary policy is focused on getting inflation back down to 2% while sustaining a recovery that includes everyone. This is our most important task.”

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said Fed “could begin increasing the policy rate as early as the March meeting in order to be in a better position to control inflation.” He added, ” it makes sense to get going sooner rather than later and so I think March would be a definite possibility.”

“We need to risk manage here. We need to be prepared for the case where inflation does not moderate as much as hoped and instead the Fed has to come in and move inflation closer to the 2% target. How much the Fed has to do and how much natural moderation there will be is very much an open question,” he said.

Separately, Bullard also told WSJ, “I actually now think we should maybe go to four hikes in 2022.”

Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said today, “there is a risk inflation is likely to be elevated for an extended period of time and we need to respond directly, clearly and aggressively.” “If things continue the way they are March would be a reasonable possibility,” he added.

Bostic also said there was no need to phase in balance sheet runoff. “I would hope we would move pretty quickly and get out of this emergency stance,” he said. “The tool is pretty well understood and the motivation is pretty well understood. It should go faster for sure.”