Chicago Fed Chief Goolsbee: "Multiple Rate Cuts in 2026." War and Inflation: "Actually, Maybe 2027."

Less than 48 hours after confidently predicting multiple Fed rate cuts in 2026, Goolsbee walked it back at the Semafor World Economy conference. Turns out the Iran war sent oil prices skyward, inflation stayed sticky (core PCE possibly surged to 3.2% in March—the largest gain in 2 years), and suddenly the path to rate cuts went from "multiple times this year" to "maybe next year." The Fed projected just one quarter-point cut for all of 2026 in their March dot plot. Meanwhile, JPMorgan forecasts zero cuts. Goolsbee sounded like a man who just realized his playbook got torched by geopolitics. Classic move: predict when things are calm, get blindsided by reality, pivot hard.