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fomc | 2,006 | Again, the statistical analysis is very frustrating. It's hard to get that variable to enter reliably, particularly with real-time data that are susceptible to the kind of revisions that we have seen. We do put a nod in our inflation forecast to the acceleration in structural productivity, which is related to unit labo... | 79 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Yellen. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. I have a question for David and Karen, and it picks up on President Poole's. My question has to do with what, if anything, we can learn about the role of energy-price increases as a factor raising core inflation here from the experience of other countries. Since we're not the only country experiencing increa... | 151 |
fomc | 2,006 | I suspect that there is, but I confess that I'm not really able to give you the details this morning. We have not attempted to do a major project of that sort. There are two things that have to be immediately taken into account if you're thinking about some kind of cross-country, or at least non-U.S., look at this. Fir... | 412 |
fomc | 2,006 | President Pianalto. | 4 |
fomc | 2,006 | David, in your opening comments you said that the staff got the last two employment numbers right. But they were below the market expectations of what the employment numbers would be. In the Greenbook baseline projections, the employment growth numbers going forward are even lower. They are 80,000 per month for the res... | 186 |
fomc | 2,006 | The predominant factor in generating those strikingly low employment gains is our projection for trend labor force participation over the projection period. With the aging of the workforce, we think that the trend is now turning decidedly downward, not for cyclical reasons, not because the labor market presents atypica... | 306 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. | 3 |
fomc | 2,006 | President Minehan. | 4 |
fomc | 2,006 | I have a follow-on question to Sandy's. I know how the benchmark GDP revisions work into your forecast. But if you look just at the headline numbers, we seem to have the worst of all circumstances for a central bank: a good deal slower growth for a number of reasons--the benchmark being one of them--even though all the... | 310 |
fomc | 2,006 | Let me take those concerns in turn. First, with regard to the speed of adjustment of consumption to potential GDP--perhaps it is ironic, but our assumption is that we are the most ignorant ones in this little morality play; that households and businesses have been aware of the slower growth of potential GDP; and that, ... | 232 |
fomc | 2,006 | But you still have it growing pretty fast over the forecast period--4 percent or so. | 18 |
fomc | 2,006 | Yes; indeed, faster than spending, and that's how we generate the upward motion of the personal saving rate. | 22 |
fomc | 2,006 | The way that changes is sort of speedy, too; but that was in your previous forecast. | 19 |
fomc | 2,006 | Now, let's see. I can't read my own notes. The second question is? | 17 |
fomc | 2,006 | Just a real estate investment question. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Oh, have we seen anything like this outside of a recession? I don't know the answer to that. I would mention, however, how strong residential investment was through the recession and how well sustained it was and how we all remarked on the strength with which that sector persisted through that period of very low intere... | 184 |
fomc | 2,006 | Slowly. | 3 |
fomc | 2,006 | Slowly. | 3 |
fomc | 2,006 | President Fisher. | 3 |
fomc | 2,006 | Just a quick question for Karen. Karen, looking at the global economy as a whole, would you say that capacity utilization has increased since we last met, since the end of the last quarter, or since the beginning of the year and, if so, to a significant degree? | 56 |
fomc | 2,006 | I would say in a kind of notional sense that most especially China, for example, has not slowed to the degree that we and everybody else had been expecting. There was a significant positive surprise in the Q2 numbers for China. At the time we saw what we called the "volatility" of May-June, when it looked as though som... | 182 |
fomc | 2,006 | Is that net of our weakness or our declining? This is just guess work, but I am curious. | 21 |
fomc | 2,006 | If the full trajectory going through the rest of this year that is in the Greenbook takes place, then the United States is going to take the world back just a bit, and it will bring Canada with it probably. At least that is what our forecast says will happen. We see China stepping harder on the mechanisms that it uses ... | 175 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. | 3 |
fomc | 2,006 | Any other questions? | 4 |
fomc | 2,006 | May I just briefly mention the staff view? Our research on structural labor force participation is laid out in a Brookings paper that is just about due for release by folks who are our labor specialists. That paper sets out in considerable detail our work in this area. | 52 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. We are ready for our economic outlook go-round. For President Plosser's benefit, I will say that we have two go-rounds. The first is on the economic outlook, and the second is on policy issues. One hand means you want to be recognized, and Michelle will put your name on the list. If you want to interject a q... | 96 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Economic conditions in the Seventh District moderated in the second quarter in line with our expectations after a very strong first quarter. Most of my directors and business contacts believe that added caution is taking hold in the economy. Some think that growth will be noticeably slower in t... | 1,110 |
fomc | 2,006 | President Yellen. | 4 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So far the economy has stuck pretty close to the script of the soft landing sketched out in the June Greenbook. Real GDP growth slowed markedly in the second quarter. Housing construction has declined sharply, and house prices have decelerated; this situation suggests that our policy actions ha... | 1,374 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Fisher. | 6 |
fomc | 2,006 | Mr. Chairman, at our last FOMC meeting in my now over one-year-long attempt to stay away from any analogies referring to innings or baseball [laughter], I used the analogy of Phil Mickelson at the U.S. Open to suggest an opposite strategy. What I suggested was that we use the minutes we are about to release and especia... | 2,397 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Minehan. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Incoming data on the national economy have been slightly lower on the growth side and slightly higher on the side of continuing price escalation than at least we expected, and we have seen reflections of both these trends in the New England economy. Overall, however, my sense is that ... | 1,263 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Guynn. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In our last meeting I reported that, while our Southeast economy still seemed reasonably solid, we were beginning to pick up anecdotal signs that activity might be slowing. Well, that sluggishness is now gradually showing up in the data as well. The slowing is perhaps most noticeable in our lab... | 938 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Pianalto. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My outlook hasn't changed very much since last spring, when I was contemplating the not-so-welcome cycle of slowdown in economic activity and some persistence in both headline and core inflation due to the lingering effects of large energy-price increases. In fact, the Greenbook projections for... | 759 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Lacker. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Fifth District's economy remains generally strong, though overall growth appears to have moderated in recent weeks. Retail sales have been lackluster, especially for big-ticket items. Manufacturing shipments and new orders picked up in July, however, and our early readings for August are ev... | 1,969 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Plosser. | 8 |
fomc | 2,006 | Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure to be here today at my first meeting. Many people around the table I've known for many, many years. Others I don't know so well, but I'm looking forward to getting to know you better. I realize that as the new kid on the block, so to speak, I have a lot to learn. I... | 1,910 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Stern. | 6 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As has been observed, growth moderated in the second quarter largely as anticipated. The economy is perhaps returning to a sustainable pace of growth--one, I would add, that may be above the Greenbook forecast for next year. As I thought about the Greenbook, much of it seemed plausible to me; b... | 442 |
fomc | 2,006 | President Hoenig. | 4 |
fomc | 2,006 | Mr. Chairman, thank you. Obviously we are dealing with a difficult set of circumstances. We have information that the growth of the economy is slowing and inflation is rising, not something we particularly like to see. We have seen slowing consumption nationally, and certainly our District has seen some of it. The one ... | 511 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Poole. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to offer just a few anecdotes, starting with Wal-Mart. At the beginning of the year, Wal-Mart's plan for same-store sales was for growth of 3 percent to 5 percent, but growth has run persistently below that since Easter. July came in at 2.6 percent. They had expected a range of 1 to 3 pe... | 713 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. Vice Chairman Geithner. | 9 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Growth has moderated, but the economy still seems, to us at least, likely to grow at a reasonably good pace over the forecast period, somewhere in the vicinity of 3 percent. We expect core inflation to moderate gradually from current levels, declining to around 2 percent in '07. This forecast a... | 1,401 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. Governor Kohn. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As many of you have remarked, the inflation news over the intermeeting period was not favorable. Core consumer prices continued to run at an elevated level, and the CPI actually came in on the high side of expectations. The shortfall in the PCE that President Yellen referenced was, I think, mor... | 1,022 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. Governor Bies. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think our decision today is going to be a close call because of the recent information we've gotten both on inflation and on the growth of the economy. We know that, as President Poole and others have mentioned, wage and price inflation has been accelerating and is fairly broadly based. The r... | 739 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. I see it's 11:00, and I'm told that coffee is ready outside. Why don't we take a fifteen-minute break. Thank you. | 32 |
fomc | 2,006 | David Wilcox has a couple of comments on the productivity data from this morning. | 16 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just very briefly, these data came in, in most respects, pretty close to our expectation. I would note that the productivity figures for the second quarter are built on the output data that were incorporated in last week's advance GDP number. We expect nonfarm business productivity in the secon... | 175 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. Let's turn now to Governor Warsh. | 11 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Treasury markets have convinced themselves in recent days and weeks of the prospects of lower growth, lower rates, and some degree of comfort with inflation, and they seem to have lurched to that on a somewhat accelerated basis in the past several weeks. But with some degree of humility, I'... | 2,199 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. Governor Kroszner. | 9 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you very much. As the comments indicate, this is probably the most challenging time that we have had before us in my long history here at the FOMC. [Laughter] The mix of continuing inflation pressures and decelerating growth are providing more concerns on both fronts than I have heard around the table and than I ... | 1,222 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. Let me briefly summarize what I've heard and add a few comments. I think one thing we can conclude is that this is not getting any easier. [Laughter] Starting with the data, which are not cooperating, the NIPA revisions show that potential growth may be less than we thought and, therefore, we may have to hav... | 1,609 |
fomc | 2,006 | 2 As shown in the top panel of exhibit 1, the probability of a 25 basis point firming at this meeting implied by federal funds futures quotes trended down over the intermeeting period. Policy expectations were boosted briefly by higher-than-expected inflation readings, but those increases were more than offset by Feder... | 2,060 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. Any questions for Brian? President Moskow. | 12 |
fomc | 2,006 | I have one question about the term "resource utilization." It was in our statement last time, and we took it out of many of the alternatives. I think David mentioned that resource utilization was a bit tighter since our last meeting. I was wondering whether there was a particular reason for taking it out of many of the... | 71 |
fomc | 2,006 | It's in alternative C. | 5 |
fomc | 2,006 | It is in alternative C, as President Minehan mentions. I think it's simply a question of whether or not the Committee prefers to speak in those terms, whether it would like to mention that factor at this meeting. I don't think the staff has a strong view on whether or not it should be included. | 61 |
fomc | 2,006 | You do not have a strong view. | 8 |
fomc | 2,006 | I do not. | 4 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. | 3 |
fomc | 2,006 | Any other questions? Governor Kohn. | 8 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I found this a challenging meeting for arriving at a policy conclusion. I certainly agree with many of you that inflation has been running higher than we want for longer than we have wanted, and I actively debated whether we should continue on our tightening path. But in the end, I think there ... | 738 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Minehan. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you very much. In my memory, this is about the toughest decision I've ever been a part of at this table. Over the past twelve, thirteen, or so years that I've been here, we haven't faced the combination of potential for slower growth and rising inflation that is certainly not optimal for a central bank, and I rea... | 799 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Yellen. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I favor alternative B. It is a tough decision. I personally consider this the wiser course of action, although I think there's no question that a case can be made for raising rates today. Alternative B has several advantages. First, a pause at this meeting will give us a chance to review incomi... | 860 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Guynn. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With each speaker, this discussion gets more and more interesting. I think it's fair to say that anybody who has been involved in the policymaking process for very long has made a speech or talked publicly about how you come to the meeting with your own views and you're always willing to listen... | 659 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Plosser. | 8 |
fomc | 2,006 | Gee, what can I say? [Laughter] It's a very difficult call, and indeed, I consider myself really fortunate that I happen to be in on this discussion in my first time. Maybe there are some advantages and disadvantages to that. Maybe I don't carry some of the baggage of what I've said in past meetings because I haven't s... | 942 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Lacker. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | As I outlined earlier, my sense is that, after having largely eliminated resource underutilization, the economy is now fluctuating around potential. It's attractive in circumstances like this to look back to similar periods for an independent gauge on the appropriate level of real interest rates. From 1995 through 2000... | 1,589 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Stern. | 6 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. Well, like others, I have asked myself whether this is the appropriate time to pause. I think there are respectable and reasonable arguments on both sides of that question, and so let me briefly make a couple of them. In favor of the pause now is the observation, which I would reiterate, that I do believe in... | 467 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Poole. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As others are, I am very torn about this decision. I come out for holding the funds rate constant, and here is the problem that I have with our situation. Part of it is the language that we used in the past. If you look at the first exhibit that we were given, you see that the fed funds rate re... | 679 |
fomc | 2,006 | Mr. Chairman? May I ask Mr. Poole a clarifying question? | 16 |
fomc | 2,006 | Certainly. | 2 |
fomc | 2,006 | So, Bill, you would want to do what to expectations? How would you want expectations to evolve in response to your preferred version of the language associated with a pause today? Do you want them to be flat going forward? | 45 |
fomc | 2,006 | Well, in terms of what we know today, I think we ought to be noncommittal. If we continue to get information that leads to extending the inflation risk or maybe indicating that it is more severe even than we think today, then we ought to be responding to that, and we ought to leave ourselves open to be responding to th... | 163 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Pianalto. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like others, I think the policy action at this meeting is a very close call, but in the end I support a pause, even in light of the continuing unfavorable inflation situation. I think that there is a real possibility that slack could be greater during this projection period than the staff's bas... | 379 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Hoenig. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't think I'll surprise you. I agree with Governor Kohn that a pause is appropriate. In terms of some of the comments, I do suggest that we need to recognize that we often say that monetary policy operates with a lag. In fact, moves that we have made have not yet worked their way through, a... | 309 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. President Fisher. | 6 |
fomc | 2,006 | Mr. Chairman, I think it was in March that I referred to Pascal's famous wager about the existence of God. Pascal's view was basically that if you look far out in the future from a risk-management standpoint, the answer was in the affirmative. [Laughter] I happen to accept the existence of inflation, and I admire Presi... | 448 |
fomc | 2,006 | Excellent reason. President Moskow. | 7 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The incoming data have heightened my concerns about inflation. I think it's true, as a number of people have mentioned around the table, that inflation expectations have not moved up. The markets seem pretty confident that we're going to be successful in fighting inflation. But as Kevin Warsh s... | 612 |
fomc | 2,006 | Thank you. Governor Bies. | 7 |
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