NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - As another disturbingly high reading on inflation hits the markets, it will be interesting to see if the Federal Reserve maintains the upbeat view expressed by some its officials in the last 24 hours.

Last night at a speech I attended in New York, the president of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, Sandra Pianalto, was pretty upbeat not only on inflation, but on the economy overall.

She said she finds it comforting that even with the recent increase in oil prices "inflation expectations have stayed well anchored."

This is important. Fed officials in particular and economists in general figure that if prices are going up, but you and I don't expect them to stay up, we will be more resistant to paying higher prices. We'll be willing to wait for them to come back down (in theory, anyway). And that will prevent an upward inflationary spiral from starting.

Also important, Pianalto and others recognize that much of the recent jump in headline inflation numbers like the consumer price index and the producer price index has been due to oil prices.

"I make a distinction between how much of the pickup has been as a result of energy prices and how much has been translated into permanent inflation," she said. "I'm just not seeing a pickup in permanent inflation. We'll have to be vigilant obviously."

In separate remarks, two other Fed officials -- San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen and St. Louis Fed President William Poole -- echoed this view that rising headline inflation has shown a "pass-through" from energy prices but the long-term inflation prospect is still good.

Poole told reporters yesterday after a speech on entrepreneurship, "The outlook for inflation looks quite or very favorable," due to tame labor costs and growing productivity.

Yellen in a television interview said that recent reports on the trade deficit and retail sales showed that the economy might have hit a soft patch. And she noted that high energy prices draw purchasing power away from other goods and services.

In other words, if you're paying more at the pump you are going to buy less at the mall. In that sense, high-energy prices are less inflationary than they are a drag on the economic growth.

We shall see.

The Fed officials spoke before Wednesday's report showing that even the "core" rate of inflation -- stripping out food and energy prices -- picked up in March, coming in above most economists' forecasts.

Still, if the officials' optimistic views on inflation prove correct, that's good news for mortgage rates and for stocks, since it means interest rates can stay relatively low.

More broadly, it will be good news for all the American public if inflation doesn't further eat away at their paychecks.

For more columns by Kathleen Hays, click here.