Amid all the talk of recession and higher-for-longer rates, "the consumer is still making decisions" says AT&T CEO John Stankey.

The man who got an offer to work for the Federal Reserve straight out of school, told Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor Brian Sozzi that the Fed has done "what they can do, and what they should have done". He added that interest rates are "only one tool, and one that isn't all that precise in how it works".

Responding to a question on how big companies like AT&T (T) navigate the potential headwinds caused by an elevated rate regime, he said inflation is "the more insidious force" and his company has the access to navigate through any crisis.

On the fiscal side, Stankey said he wanted to see more spending discipline from a policy perspective, saying "demands on debt markets are crowding out private industry and private investment."

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Video Transcript

JOHN STANKEY: By and large, the consumer is still out there. In our case, they're still paying their bills. They're still making decisions like buying new handsets and trading up on plans. That's all good. I think from a CEO's perch if I'm thinking about what's in store for 2024, I get a little concerned about where interest rates are. I think that's probably going to be for, frankly, an extended period.

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It's good for my business. We're not going to be in the markets refinancing debt. We'll be paying off what we have through cash flows. We have mostly fixed debt, which is good, but I don't think it's good for the economy as a whole. I worry that we could have some geopolitical dynamics that could put some more stress on inflation moving forward.

And it's fragile enough in the overall equation that, you know, one or two of those things break the wrong way, I think it could ultimately roll down to the consumer, roll down to jobs creation. And that wouldn't be good for any of us.

BRIAN SOZZI: I got a hot tip, John, and hang with me here as I lead into this. You got an offer to join the Federal Reserve out of school. Is that correct?

JOHN STANKEY: Well, it didn't take long for that one to get out. Yes. That was one of the offers I was--

BRIAN SOZZI: One of the offers.

JOHN STANKEY: One of the offers I was considering.

BRIAN SOZZI: Why did you turn it down?

JOHN STANKEY: It was a hard decision. It was, you know, that or go do the choices I made. And I always thought it'd be really fun to work in bank vaults and audit, you know, safe deposit boxes and things like that. It just seemed cool.

BRIAN SOZZI: So now here is where I'm going. I mean because you have that affinity for the Fed, whatever it might be, do you really worry about what the Federal Reserve has done in terms of interest rates, and what it might mean to a big company like AT&T.