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fomc | 1,979 | If we give them the adjusted figure for M1--remember we cited the 1/2 to 4-1/2 percent-- | 28 |
fomc | 1,979 | We might have to underline that. | 7 |
fomc | 1,979 | We are going to have to clarify that one, I think. | 13 |
fomc | 1,979 | MI. Chairman, I wonder if we shouldn't at least make the initial decision if you are ready to go that far. Or if you want to discuss the specifications, which M r . Axilrod can [expound on], we can go that route. | 52 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, we can go that route. Maybe we ought to discuss specifications. But in my mind, at this point we've made no decision to go in this direction. I think that's a decision we should make at the end oE the road, and citing some specifications may put some concreteness on this discussion in terms of whether we want to ... | 294 |
fomc | 1,979 | I was merely raising the question of whether you wanted to get the specifications of the traditional as well as the new procedure. | 24 |
fomc | 1,979 | Why don't we [discuss the specifications], unless somebody wants to ask more about the mechanics. That will come out to some degree in the discussion anyway. | 31 |
fomc | 1,979 | I'd like to understand a little better the role of the discount window and the discount rate in this procedure. If we bias the reserve path in one direction or another, that will influence the volume of borrowing. That will then influence interest rates, which in turn will affect borrowing by virtue of the spread betwe... | 114 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, if we adopt this approach, that is one of the issues I had in mind when I suggested that the Reserve Bank Presidents might want to meet for further discussion this afternoon. One of the problems with this approach, it seems to me, is that the administration of the discount window is very confused at the moment. I... | 368 |
fomc | 1,979 | Mr. Chairman, if I might add a point. If the Committee goes this route, I was planning to have a conference call with the discount window officers. My intent would not be to say anything about their administrative procedures but to explain that they might expect more volatile movements in borrowing than under existing ... | 61 |
fomc | 1,979 | Whatever they are. | 4 |
fomc | 1,979 | I wanted the discount officers to be aware that they shouldn't be shocked if one bank is in and another one is out, because the funds rate might exhibit more volatility. | 33 |
fomc | 1,979 | What I visualize happening--but it may not if we move the discount rate frequently enough--is that with the volatility in the funds rate, more and more banks will be tempted to borrow despite the presumed guideline against it. So the discipline that now exists will break down, and the same level of borrowings will mean... | 87 |
fomc | 1,979 | They might arbitrage out some of the fluctuations we would otherwise have in the federal funds rate, too. | 21 |
fomc | 1,979 | No question that the federal funds rate will be influenced by the discount rate. It is now, but it will be more so. | 26 |
fomc | 1,979 | It seems to me that the main [objective] ought to be to set the discount rate at a level--if we can figure out what that is--that would reduce the volatility of borrowing, which would enable us to get at total reserves more precisely. I think that would mean that we should try to keep the discount rate at a penalty rat... | 84 |
fomc | 1,979 | I think that is the implication of this technique in the long run but not in the short run. | 20 |
fomc | 1,979 | There is a question here of how the Reserve Banks should report all this to their boards of directors. I think some of the sharper directors will raise questions about what the role of the discount rate is and what their role is with respect to this new mechanism. We are going to need to consider this. My guess would b... | 107 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, I haven't thought about it a lot, but I presume that the discount rate would be more flexible but not so much more flexible [as to preclude1 a variety of requests from various Banks in a timely fashion. So there wouldn't be any special problem. I think we are going to have a lot more requests for discount rate ch... | 92 |
fomc | 1,979 | You may remember, Paul, back in 1974 we were operating the discount window with a 4 percent spread between the funds rate and the discount rate. | 32 |
fomc | 1,979 | I think we can do that, too. | 9 |
fomc | 1,979 | Sure, we can do that. | 7 |
fomc | 1,979 | Administration of the window can control-- | 7 |
fomc | 1,979 | Oh, it can ultimately control it if we make that decision. Did you want to say something, Phil? | 22 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, M r . Chairman, it seems to me that there are at least four major decisions the Committee needs to make if we are going to move to a reserve targeting procedure. I'm not saying that is the [decision]; as you said, you want to come back to that. The first decision is what target we should aim at. That's [addressed... | 356 |
fomc | 1,979 | Let me comment. Let's take what you said about CDs as given without objection and reduce the variables by one. You suggested one particular way of biasing this and I would just note that in some sense it depends upon what you mean by bias. If you fill in a money supply figure of 3 percent from September through Decembe... | 155 |
fomc | 1,979 | And I am speaking in terms of the next 2 to 3 weeks with this sort of biased arrangement. | 22 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, in the money supply sense you [can] call that a bias. That would be [a bias] for the quarter. I guess it's only a 2- to 3-week bias in the sense of higher interest rates. | 48 |
fomc | 1,979 | But if we put in 3 percent for the money supply for September to December, Phil, given the fact that we can't affect October--assume it comes in at 4-1/2 percent--that means we are putting in a November-December growth of about 2 percent. The demand function is still there and we can affect the supply, but it would mea... | 95 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, if we follow Phil's formula, we do have a little room to miss on the up side. If we shoot for the-- | 28 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, the 4.6 percent [growth in M1 for September to December] is not at the very top. That gives us 5.3 percent for the year and the top of the M1 range is 6 percent. | 49 |
fomc | 1,979 | Growth reaches the top for M2. | 8 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, the M2 is a little [above] and M3 is below. There has been a shift from the thrift institutions into the banks and that accounts for some of that. | 37 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, these numbers are illustrative | 6 |
fomc | 1,979 | What is the projection for October, Steve? | 9 |
fomc | 1,979 | For Ml? | 3 |
fomc | 1,979 | Yes. | 2 |
fomc | 1,979 | 4.8 | 3 |
fomc | 1,979 | We already have to have a November-December averaging below October. | 13 |
fomc | 1,979 | I don't know whether this facilitates the discussions or not. Let's for the moment concentrate only on the money supply and the federal funds constraint. Those are enough variables to consider. And we'll consider any further bias later. | 42 |
fomc | 1,979 | I find Governor Coldwell's suggestion fairly reasonable, all things considered. | 14 |
fomc | 1,979 | Mr. Chairman, I would like to see a wider range on the federal funds rate. | 18 |
fomc | 1,979 | Wider, Emmett? | 6 |
fomc | 1,979 | Yes, wider on both the low and the high sides. I would like to see something like 9 percent on the low side and 15 to 16 percent on the high side. | 38 |
fomc | 1,979 | What we would do if it went to 9 percent--intervene in the [exchange] market in very large amounts to offset the effects? | 29 |
fomc | 1,979 | Yes. | 2 |
fomc | 1,979 | And probably be defeated. | 5 |
fomc | 1,979 | Why would we probably be defeated? | 7 |
fomc | 1,979 | Because it's not the effect of the interest rate as such. That doesn't play a big role in the short run. The exchange market would be the symbol but all over the world they would be saying the new procedure really is a form of easing. | 49 |
fomc | 1,979 | I really don't see how they could say that. | 10 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, I don't think we need to set this for all time. It seems to me that a fed funds rate constraint of 11-1/2 to 14-1/2 percent for 2 or 3 weeks-- | 47 |
fomc | 1,979 | We can come back to the question of scheduling the next meeting. My own instinct at this point is to delay what would have been the regular meeting for a week just to provide another week's experience. It seems awfully quick to come back. We'd be coming back in less than 2 weeks. | 59 |
fomc | 1,979 | Yes, a week from Tuesday. | 7 |
fomc | 1,979 | My own thought is why not delay it a week so we would have another week. | 17 |
fomc | 1,979 | We have another event associated with the next meeting--the annual meeting of the retirement committee. That meeting is about the Federal Reserve's retirement system and it brings all the Presidents here. Then they would have to come back again the next week for the FOMC meeting. | 54 |
fomc | 1,979 | Maybe we can even change that. | 7 |
fomc | 1,979 | We'd just need to know in order to change our schedules. | 13 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, it wouldn't be too bad just to have an informal discussion at the time of the next scheduled meeting, even if you decided you didn't want to have a regular FOMC meeting. | 38 |
fomc | 1,979 | We may not even be having a regular meeting then. | 11 |
fomc | 1,979 | Is it presumed, Mr. Chairman, that we would release to the public the same items of information as we do now? | 25 |
fomc | 1,979 | Do you mean in terms of the actual directive? I see two things that would be in the directive. One is the money supply target, however expressed, from now to the end of the year. And the other is the federal funds constraint. | 49 |
fomc | 1,979 | But with the usual lag. This would not be in your press release Monday or today. | 18 |
fomc | 1,979 | NO | 1 |
fomc | 1,979 | We do get caught with that, don't we? That's because we would have to release this-- | 19 |
fomc | 1,979 | Let's worry about that later. I don't see that we have to release it before 30 days, but we will decide that subsequently. | 27 |
fomc | 1,979 | I think Phil's target [proposal] is too strict. In a sense, he's choking [the money supply]. And that seems to me ridiculous, given the underlying state of the economy as we see it. I think if we aimed to be within the upper part of the range [for the year]--aimed for 4.6 percent [for September to December]--we'd tend ... | 131 |
fomc | 1,979 | I must say that I agree with Nancy. If this is the nature of the detail, then I can't agree to it. | 25 |
fomc | 1,979 | I think the thing to do at the moment is just to concentrate on the money supply. | 18 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, if you want to go around the table, I would view the figures in the right-hand column [at the bottom of page 31 as quite appropriate objectives. I would be prepared to bias the initial funds rate range. Oh I forgot, you don't want [us to address] the funds rate yet. | 63 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, we have to sometime; let's discuss the whole bias issue. We can [talk about] both the funds rate range and the money supply. | 30 |
fomc | 1,979 | I would leave the money supply [range unchanged] and bias it with the funds rate range in the initial go-around. Then we can review the funds rate range depending on progress. I would point out that with that projection for the first month [of the quarter] being above the 4.6 percent--and September deposits have determ... | 95 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, I'll let that go. I won't get into that technical point of whether we bias the operation--since the reserves of the forthcoming week are already in the bag--during that week. | 38 |
fomc | 1,979 | Yes, sure we do. | 6 |
fomc | 1,979 | No, I think the answer is that we [start with higher] borrowings that first week. We start, even though we know we can't affect the level of reserves that week. | 37 |
fomc | 1,979 | We can affect deposits in that week, even though we are addressing the reserve needs of two weeks hence. | 21 |
fomc | 1,979 | We might affect deposits in that week. | 8 |
fomc | 1,979 | And that's really what we are after, so I don't really think [money supply growth] is in the bag for October, Chuck. | 27 |
fomc | 1,979 | I don't either. | 4 |
fomc | 1,979 | I don't think we are going to affect it much. | 11 |
fomc | 1,979 | I agree that this is not going to affect it a lot, but conceptually it isn't in the bag yet. | 23 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, it's a matter of degree. We have two proposals: one for 3 percent M1 growth and one for 4.6 percent. | 30 |
fomc | 1,979 | I would like to throw a third one on the table. I'd make it 4 percent. I think we need to shade it, but I don't want to shade it as much as Phil suggested. | 40 |
fomc | 1,979 | I'm getting confused here. Are you talking about the September-- | 12 |
fomc | 1,979 | [Growth for] September to December. | 8 |
fomc | 1,979 | Okay. | 2 |
fomc | 1,979 | Mr. Chairman, could I ask a technical question of the staff regarding the right-hand part of the table on page 3? You say, Steve, that the right-hand panel shows the fourth-quarter growth rate consistent with a yearly increase in the upper half of the long-term range. I didn't have a chance to do the arithmetic on this... | 90 |
fomc | 1,979 | The growth rate shown there produces a rate [for M11 for the year of 5.3 percent. The range for the year, suitably adjusted, is 3 to 6 percent. So, that 5.3 percent is about halfway between the 4.5 percent middle of the range and the 6 percent upper end of it. | 71 |
fomc | 1,979 | Just compare the third from the right column on the bottom table with the column at the left on the top table. The target ranges are given at the top of page 3 and the growth for the year is given at the bottom of page 3. | 51 |
fomc | 1,979 | Mr. Chairman, those of us who have the Axilrod-Sternlight memo in wire form have a different pagination. | 25 |
fomc | 1,979 | It's on a different page. | 6 |
fomc | 1,979 | Well, there is a target range for M1, M2, and M3. Just write them down along side the growth for the year in the upper half of the target ranges. They are: 3 to 6 percent for M1; 5 to 8 percent for M2; and 6 to 9 percent for M3. So [growth for the year] is right at the top of the range for M2 and somewhat below the top... | 112 |
fomc | 1,979 | Mr. Chairman, do you want the growth rates [we prefer] stated in terms of the growth for the year or not? | 26 |
fomc | 1,979 | From September through December. | 5 |
fomc | 1,979 | September to December. | 4 |
fomc | 1,979 | That's going to be the operational period. | 8 |
fomc | 1,979 | I would support the 4.6 percent | 9 |
fomc | 1,979 | There's going to be variability. It's possible to get different September-to-December growth rates for the same quarterly average, as I'm sure the Committee realizes, depending on when in the quarter the growth occurs and all that. | 43 |
fomc | 1,979 | The operational one is September to December, even though that doesn't assure precisely that quarterly average. | 18 |
fomc | 1,979 | Or you could use the quarterly average and have varying growth rates for September to December, whichever you want. | 21 |
fomc | 1,979 | Steve, 4 percent for September to December would give us a 5 percent growth rate for the year, right? | 24 |
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