San Francisco Fed President John Williams, a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and who is seen as mainly sharing Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen’s views on the Fed’s monetary policy, told Reuters over the weekend what he thinks about when and how the Fed should start raising rates.

“We are really thinking about a path, we are talking about moving interest rates from zero to a normal level over several years … so even if the economy got some bad shocks, really you are probably just talking about flattening that path out a bit, or maybe raising rates more slowly … a little earlier and more gradual versus later and more aggressive: those are the options we have…”

Williams now clearly has joined that growing number of FOMC participants that would like to see the Fed starting its long way back to “normalization” better sooner than later albeit with small rate increases and, certainly initially, at a slow pace.

When last week we got the release of the minutes of the March 18 FOMC meeting, it was really interesting to see how quickly the market changed its initial interpretation of the FOMC policy statement from right out “dovish” to (still slightly) more “hawkish.”

“… Several participants judged that the economic data and outlook were likely to warrant beginning normalization at the June meeting. However, others anticipated that the effects of energy price declines and the dollar's appreciation would continue to weigh on inflation in the near term, suggesting that conditions likely would not be appropriate to begin raising rates until later in the year, and a couple of participants suggested that the economic outlook likely would not call for liftoff until 2016…”

Never forget, “several” in Fed speak means more than a couple.

Yes, there is no doubt, the market got the message there is a contingent among the 12 FOMC members that are leaning towards a firmer/more-logical approach to normalization of Fed policy, which now has also been confirmed by San Francisco Fed President Williams, who is not known as a “hawk.”

We’ve already seen the dollar firming again, which puts it back on its rising path that should continue for an “extended” time to come, which of course and as always will not be a straight line up.

With what we know today, a June lift-off is still possible, but not probable while a September-October lift-off is now fully in the cards.

It’s also interesting there are already many saying a further strengthening of the dollar won't help U.S. exports, which is true.

It is also true that exports of goods and services represent only 13.5 percent of U.S. GDP according to the latest data from the World Bank.

In all honesty, I can’t see a further strengthening of the dollar as an "immediate" threat to the U.S. economy. We should not forget, household final consumption expenditure, etc. stands at 68 percent of U.S. GDP, according the latest data from the World Bank.

In context of all what’s mentioned here before, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released last week its (for many totally unknown notwithstanding it's one of the best data set that is available) “updated” macroeconomic projections till 2030 for 189 countries that account for more than 99 percent of the world economy.

It’s interesting to see the U.S. is expected to remain the biggest economy in the world by 2030 with $24.8 trillion GDP notwithstanding its share is expected to come down from 23 percent today to 20 percent in 2030 while growing on average at 2.31 percent.

China is expected to remain the second economy in the world with $22.2 trillion GDP while growing at 6.6 percent and India is expected to become third with $6.6 trillion GDP and growing on average at 7.19 percent while Japan should fall back to fourth place with $6.4 trillion GDP and growing at 0.77 percent (!) on average.

Emerging economies are expected to grow by 5.34 percent on average, East Asia less Japan should grow by 6.04 percent while Latin America should grow 3.67 percent on average.

The eurozone (EZ) is expected to grow on average by 1.71 percent where Germany will remain the biggest EZ economy and fifth in the world with $4.5 trillion GDP and growing at 1.60 percent while France should remain second in the EZ and eighth in the world with 3.3 trillion GDP and growing at 1.37 percent.

All this could be helpful for long-term investors when doing their homework.

Fact is, at least in my opinion, the U.S. as well as the dollar will remain one of the best and safest places for investing for a long time to come, which doesn’t mean there won’t be “bumps” in the road.