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fomc | 2,005 | President Lacker. | 4 |
fomc | 2,005 | I'll pass. | 3 |
fomc | 2,005 | President Stern. | 3 |
fomc | 2,005 | Dave, I'm interested in your work on labor force participation. We've been looking at that a bit, too. Can you give me a sense of what's driving the new forecast of a leveling off in labor force participation rates of women? | 46 |
fomc | 2,005 | As I indicated, one of the refinements that we undertook in this modeling effort was that, in addition to tracking age and sex, we tried to look more carefully at cohort effects. Basically, what we are now seeing is that the participation rates of women coming into the working age population relative to the participati... | 144 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thanks. | 2 |
fomc | 2,005 | Who would like to start the Committee discussion? President Moskow. | 13 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Activity continues to firm in the Seventh District. In general, my contacts are more upbeat than they were a couple of months ago, and there is much more confidence that the expansion is on a solid, self-sustaining footing. And we're hearing more news about price increases and price pressures. ... | 1,013 |
fomc | 2,005 | President Hoenig. | 4 |
fomc | 2,005 | Mr. Chairman, looking at the economy, we expect growth will be in line with what others have said--in the 4 percent range this year and slightly above 31/2 percent next year. With trend growth of about 31/4 percent, obviously the output gap and labor market slack are diminishing. There are a whole host of reasons for t... | 1,032 |
fomc | 2,005 | President Guynn. | 4 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like others, I've been both somewhat surprised but certainly pleased at the steady and strong pace of real GDP and job growth we've been experiencing. This positive experience has been mirrored within our Southeast region. For example, regional retail sales growth in January was 7 percent on a ... | 895 |
fomc | 2,005 | President Santomero. | 5 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There has been little change in the outlook for the Third District since my last report. Economic activity continues to expand at a moderate pace in most sectors in the region, and most of our business contacts expect the current pace of activity to be maintained through the spring. Recent read... | 1,230 |
fomc | 2,005 | President Pianalto. | 4 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Conditions in the Fourth District have been gradually improving across a broad range of industries this year, and business confidence appears to be strengthening as well. Actually, it feels good to no longer be a Beige Book outlier. [Laughter] As it turns out, I am also not a Greenbook outlier.... | 857 |
fomc | 2,005 | President Lacker. | 4 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In recent weeks, we have received evidence of a continuation in the slowing growth in our District that we noted in our Beige Book report. Retail sales, which in the Beige Book were reported as having leveled off, began declining in early March by our indicators. A slump in big-ticket sales has... | 967 |
fomc | 2,005 | President Yellen. | 4 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Little has changed in the Twelfth District economy since we last met. It has continued to expand in line with the nation. For that reason, I'll focus my remaining remarks on the national economy. The data we have received since late January have been remarkably consistent in their upbeat messag... | 1,311 |
fomc | 2,005 | President Minehan. | 4 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Economic activity seems definitely on the upswing in New England. As we discussed conditions with our Beige Book contacts, met with our small business advisory group, and talked in some depth with local temporary-help agencies and software developers--as we did our usual round of contacts--the ... | 1,181 |
fomc | 2,005 | President Poole. | 4 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of my business contacts, my Wal-Mart contact, started our conversation by saying that the situation is rather strange--his word. Spending coming out of the Christmas season has been higher than anticipated--with same-store sales about 4 percent higher on a year-over-year basis--and they're ... | 941 |
fomc | 2,005 | President Stern. | 3 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The broad-based expansion in our District economy persists. Employment is continuing to increase. The manufacturing sector is a standout, growing rapidly. Demand for construction equipment reportedly is very strong. Backlogs are building in that sector, and there are long lead times. There is a... | 347 |
fomc | 2,005 | First Vice President Holcomb. | 6 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The economy in the Eleventh District has been gaining strength since last November. The most recent data, in combination with anecdotal evidence, point to improved growth in January and February and to a brighter outlook in the months ahead. Importantly, the recovery in Texas employment growth ... | 943 |
fomc | 2,005 | Well, we'd like you both to be here to give us the answer! | 15 |
fomc | 2,005 | I'll whisper in his ear before he comes to the meeting. [Laughter] | 16 |
fomc | 2,005 | Helen, it has been a real pleasure having you here. | 12 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thanks. I really appreciate it. | 7 |
fomc | 2,005 | Vice Chair. | 3 |
fomc | 2,005 | I have no humor in my statement and nothing that differs from the consensus. | 15 |
fomc | 2,005 | Your straightforward remarks are very humorous. [Laughter] | 11 |
fomc | 2,005 | Careful. [Laughter] The near-term outlook appears more favorable to us, as it does to everybody else. We have moved up our forecast to reflect stronger than-anticipated underlying growth and somewhat greater price pressure. On the expectation that we will move the fed funds rate up at the somewhat steeper path now pric... | 975 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you very much. Let's break for coffee. | 10 |
fomc | 2,005 | Governor Bernanke. | 4 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are experiencing a mini-inflation scare in financial markets--a development that we need to take very seriously. The primary reason for the scare was the recent rapid increase in the prices of oil and other basic commodities. Other determinants of inflation, it should be noted, seem to be la... | 866 |
fomc | 2,005 | Governor Gramlich. | 4 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I will be the fourteenth person to explain why the balance of risks is gradually changing. A few months ago, we were still worried about supposed soft spots but at this point the expansion looks pretty solid. Housing and consumption growth remain strong. The feared pothole in business i... | 1,065 |
fomc | 2,005 | Governor Ferguson. | 3 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At the last meeting, I described the economy as being in what I called a mid-cycle sweet spot, so the obvious question is: What has happened since then? I would say that, in general, my headline is bifurcated. One is, "so far so good;" and two is, "there are a number of caveats". Let's first lo... | 1,693 |
fomc | 2,005 | Governor Kohn. | 4 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Activity has come in somewhat stronger in recent months, and price pressures have been a bit more intense than anticipated at the last FOMC meeting. Evidently, continued good growth in income and high profits are keeping household spending rising briskly and eroding any remaining business cauti... | 1,369 |
fomc | 2,005 | Governor Bies. | 4 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Economic growth this quarter, as several of you have noted, has been stronger than we earlier had anticipated. Retail sales excluding autos have grown at over a 9 percent annual rate in the first two months of the quarter. Business investment has been strong and does not show a significant decl... | 467 |
fomc | 2,005 | Governor Olson. | 3 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In my comments I want to follow up on President Guynn's and President Lacker's observations about speculative housing investment. We have heard increasing anecdotal evidence and concern about this issue, and I think the characterization in yesterday's Wall Street Journal that day trading is now... | 625 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you. Vincent. | 5 |
fomc | 2,005 | 2 Carol Low will be handing out copies of my presentation. As can be seen in the upper left panel of your first exhibit, the expected trajectory of Federal Reserve tightening now steps up considerably more steeply than was the case at the time of your February meeting. In part, this movement is an example of how words ... | 2,433 |
fomc | 2,005 | Thank you. Questions for Vincent? | 7 |
fomc | 2,005 | Let me ask you about your last few sentences. You said that if we use the alternative B version for the balance of risks, that limits its use in the future because if we ever say the risks are not balanced, then we're confessing that policy is inappropriate in some sense. When I first saw that clause I liked it, but I ... | 108 |
fomc | 2,005 | You can't use it to signal the direction of rates. So if it stands in isolation--that is, if there are no other statements providing guidance in that portion of the announcement--you won't be telling market participants anything particularly useful. A risk assessment based on appropriate policy would only be unbalanced... | 233 |
fomc | 2,005 | I had similar concerns to Governor Gramlich's about the "appropriate policy action" language. And given the length of your discourse, Vincent, which certainly was interesting in supporting the language, and the level of detail that you just went into in describing it, I think it's going to be very hard to explain to ot... | 253 |
fomc | 2,005 | I think we put that in there because later in the statement you do say that underlying inflation is expected to be contained, and it seemed necessary then to provide at least some offset to the concern expressed earlier about pressure on inflation having picked up. | 48 |
fomc | 2,005 | The critical word is "notably"--that the rise in energy prices has not notably fed through to core consumer prices. It's not saying that the pass-through is zero. | 34 |
fomc | 2,005 | A doubling in the rate of core inflation on a year-over-year basis-- | 15 |
fomc | 2,005 | If you actually trace through the cost structure, energy prices can impact on core prices in only two ways--in unit labor costs or in petrochemical feedstock prices spreading out through various constituent elements in the production processes it affects. The latter is actually a very small part of GDP. | 56 |
fomc | 2,005 | I guess my point is that I wouldn't make that particular statement. I think that pressures on inflation have picked up and pricing power is more evident. After all, we have to believe that underlying inflation can be contained or else we'd be moving a lot more strongly now. So, I don't think it's inconsistent to stop t... | 65 |
fomc | 2,005 | Well, there's another reason it's in there. The fact is that we need to put something like that in the statement today because of the current energy price environment. If we have only a marginal statement about the impact of energy prices on GDP, it's going to raise the question: In what cave have they been operating? | 63 |
fomc | 2,005 | Yes, I was worried about that, too. | 10 |
fomc | 2,005 | I think Mike is next. | 6 |
fomc | 2,005 | I wanted to express concern about the phrase "appropriate policy action," too, for the reasons that have been discussed here. I don't think we need it. I realize that it does show that some effort is required to have the risks balanced and that it is somewhat of a signal that we're ready to do more, if necessary. But i... | 119 |
fomc | 2,005 | How would you-- | 4 |
fomc | 2,005 | I would just drop it. | 6 |
fomc | 2,005 | You would just say: "The Committee perceives the upside and downside risks to the attainment of both sustainable growth and price stability..." | 26 |
fomc | 2,005 | I would say they "remain roughly equal." | 9 |
fomc | 2,005 | That's a tough one. We've gotten away with that wording as we've raised the funds rate, on the grounds that we are removing accommodation. So it has had no real significant impact. But in terms of that statement being true, the truth of the matter is that as we continue to move up, it's less credible. I happen to think... | 223 |
fomc | 2,005 | We'd have to recognize it's very short-lived. | 10 |
fomc | 2,005 | Oh, absolutely. | 4 |
fomc | 2,005 | Could I make a friendly amendment, President Moskow? It is very dangerous to do this at the eleventh hour. I wish I'd gotten into this sooner, and I apologize for not doing so. But we could go down to the sentence in alternative C for the balance-of-risk statement, and then back to the last two sentences in "B." And I ... | 81 |
fomc | 2,005 | Can you read that? | 5 |
fomc | 2,005 | Whether we keep the sentence that Cathy talked about or not, we'd have the sentence that says pricing power is more evident. And then we'd go to "The Committee perceives that if the current target for the federal funds rate were maintained for the next few quarters, it is more likely than not that output would grow at ... | 83 |
fomc | 2,005 | That may be. But as I said to one of my colleagues earlier, if we use that language, I hope you're not standing next to the market when that comes out, because I think it raises too many issues that we don't need to raise at this stage. Your arguments are, in my judgment, generally valid, but I would hold off on them. ... | 110 |
fomc | 2,005 | Just so I'm clear, how would you suggest we correct it at the May meeting? | 17 |
fomc | 2,005 | Basically, by the May meeting, we're going to know a good deal more about how this particular issue is emerging. We may find that the staff's productivity numbers, which move growth in unit labor costs down, are beginning to show up in the marketplace and it will make a lot of this discussion moot. Or we may find that ... | 236 |
fomc | 2,005 | Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure I followed all the alternatives, but let me weigh in on the draft language in cell B5 as well. If we're going to make that kind of change in the language, I think there's a better way to do it that will be a better transition in terms of the guidance we offer. I would suggest another alternat... | 179 |
fomc | 2,005 | Try that again. That is not a bad idea. | 11 |
fomc | 2,005 | "Conditional upon the current path of policy, the risks to the attainment of both sustainable growth and price stability are roughly balanced." To me it combines a number of things I heard around the table. Also, I want to say that I come out of the same cave as Cathy on the B4 cell. Although we didn't have any quid pr... | 168 |
fomc | 2,005 | Vice Chair. | 3 |
fomc | 2,005 | I think there's a disadvantage in validating the market's current expectations so explicitly. There are two ways to think about framing our policy assumption or giving a signal. One is to say, "with policy unchanged, et cetera." The other is to say, "taking the expected path now priced in the markets, we think X." That... | 219 |
fomc | 2,005 | May I try just one more thought? I meant to say this earlier. I think Jerry Jordan, wherever he is on his sailboat, would smile at B5, because I think we're saying exactly what Jerry tried to get us for years to say: If policy is set appropriately at the meeting, the risks should always be balanced. I think it actually... | 80 |
fomc | 2,005 | May I suggest something? I think you're addressing an issue for the May meeting. We have to be careful about how far we move at this particular stage. All the issues that have been raised with respect to this question are valid ones, and what we're doing is struggling to find the best way to handle it. To date, I think... | 228 |
fomc | 2,005 | I have one concern with "measured," and that is that it means 25 basis points. | 20 |
fomc | 2,005 | It does and it does not. And I hope that in the minutes--because I'm going to say something about it--we try to take away that notion that "measured" means 25 basis points. President Santomero. | 47 |
fomc | 2,005 | The only thing that concerns me about the sentence we've been working on is this: I'm not sure it actually does anything good. Where we were, to my mind, may be better than where we're going. I'm not sure what "should" means in the context, and I'm not sure the conditioning actually moves us ahead. We may be better off... | 120 |
fomc | 2,005 | One possibility--I'm not necessarily arguing for this--is instead of the "appropriate policy" to say "with current policy actions." But I think this is a discussion for the May meeting. The reason I say that is not that the arguments essentially are wrong, but because this is such a fundamental shift that to try to do ... | 76 |
fomc | 2,005 | It's only if we shift at all. | 8 |
fomc | 2,005 | I know, but the problem is that if we don't shift--if we retain the same statement on upside and downside risks as the last time--I think we'll run into trouble. President Lacker. | 40 |
fomc | 2,005 | There's something highly ironic about this whole discussion to me. We initially introduced the balance-of-risk statement in order to communicate about the direction of policy without talking explicitly about interest rates or policy. We were relying on this sort of simple version of a policy rule whereby the public cou... | 160 |
fomc | 2,005 | Let me ask one thing about all of this discussion. This draft language was in the Bluebook originally. Why haven't you communicated all of your concerns? That's precisely the purpose of having that in the Bluebook. | 42 |
fomc | 2,005 | We have. | 3 |
fomc | 2,005 | Did they all convey this to you, Vincent? | 10 |
fomc | 2,005 | Yes. | 2 |
fomc | 2,005 | Well, you obviously didn't convince him. [Laughter] | 12 |
fomc | 2,005 | Mr. Chairman, where I was going on this was to say that we have the minutes now to convey in a rich format what we view as the likely direction of the economy and of policy. I think we're having trouble with this, and we are going to have trouble with this--and I don't have any view about whether now or May is the righ... | 89 |
fomc | 2,005 | Why don't we handle this by replicating part of this argument in the minutes to convey what the issues are rather than argue it now? Well, we should argue it now. [Laughter] | 39 |
fomc | 2,005 | The ultimate place I was going was to suggest that sometime soon we consider dropping this whole statement. | 19 |
fomc | 2,005 | That we can do. | 5 |
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