[Federal Reserve's Barkin: The logic for rate hikes may primarily revolve around rising inflation expectations] Odaily Planet Daily News – Richmond Fed President Barkin stated that current corporate behavior still suggests they view high oil prices as merely a short-term disruption. At present, there is almost no evidence indicating that this has led to consumers cutting back on spending or altering inflation expectations in a concerning way. On Tuesday, Barkin said: 'My intuition is that people are still looking at this issue from a short-term perspective. Gasoline spending has clearly risen significantly, but other spending still appears relatively healthy.' Barkin noted that there are scenarios that could push Federal Reserve policy in either direction, but in his view, the logic for rate hikes may primarily revolve around rising inflation expectations. Such a situation would force policymakers to demonstrate their commitment to maintaining inflation near the 2% target. He said: 'The rationale for rate hikes would center around inflation expectations eventually starting to rise. But I currently don't see such a breakthrough.' In contrast, scenarios for rate cuts would include inflation rapidly falling back to 2% from its current level, which is about 1 percentage point above the target, or a weakening labor market that would require support through rate cuts. (Jin10)