Speaking at the annual meeting of the Tennessee Bankers Association, St. Louis Fed president James Bullard said that the central bank was now closer to attaining its goals than anytime during the last five years, stressing however that the stance of monetary policy was still far from pre-crisis levels. The labor markets needs to improve further and inflation rise towards the 2% target, Bullard pointed out. He added that the current challenge for the Fed was choosing the proper pace of policy normalization. “Considering how they’ve missed most of their 'goals' and 'targets' for the last 5 years, the fact they may be closer is probably more by luck than design,” Ryan Littlestone comments on ForexLive. “Central banks trying to steer an economy is like trying to steer an oil tanker with a teaspoon.”