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value | Date int64 1.98k 2.01k | Text stringlengths 2 27.1k | Token_count int64 1 5.57k |
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fomc | 1,995 | Right, or A-minus. I don't know how you want to characterize that. | 16 |
fomc | 1,995 | I just want to be sure that that is what we are considering. | 14 |
fomc | 1,995 | You can do what I did. | 7 |
fomc | 1,995 | What is that? | 4 |
fomc | 1,995 | I gave him alternative C. | 6 |
fomc | 1,995 | I think three alternatives are enough! | 7 |
fomc | 1,995 | Any further questions for Don? If not, why don't we break for coffee. | 16 |
fomc | 1,995 | Let me start off the discussion as usual. First, I might indicate that I was somewhat surprised yesterday by the degree of convergence on the outlook. As I saw it, virtually all of us were concerned about asymmetric risks on the down side, but no one thought the probability of a recession was better than 50/50. Indeed,... | 3,373 |
fomc | 1,995 | Mr. Chairman, as you have indicated, in February of 1994 we set in train a series of actions to stem the rather robust economy in pursuit of our goal of price stability. I think no one on this Committee should be surprised, and I am sure no one is surprised, that we have experienced some slowdown in the economic expans... | 565 |
fomc | 1,995 | Governor Blinder. | 4 |
fomc | 1,995 | I strongly feel we should be easing today. Indeed, it seems to me that we are already somewhat behind the curve, which is something we rightly feared greatly on the up side. We never really did get behind the curve then, fortunately. But I think we now are behind the curve. We would be terribly behind the curve I might... | 1,247 |
fomc | 1,995 | President Parry. | 4 |
fomc | 1,995 | Mr. Chairman, I basically agree with many of the comments that Bob Forrestal made. If I were certain of our forecast and that in the Greenbook, I would probably favor leaving policy unchanged at present. However, as we all know, forecasts are often wrong and they often underpredict the size of cyclical swings in the ec... | 178 |
fomc | 1,995 | President Melzer. | 4 |
fomc | 1,995 | Thanks, Alan. In my judgment, and I expressed some of this yesterday, the current slowing in the expansion will be followed by a rebound of growth at a rate near the economy's long-term potential. In fact, I think the recent evidence suggests, and you mentioned this in your comments, that lower intermediate- and long-t... | 432 |
fomc | 1,995 | Governor Lindsey. | 3 |
fomc | 1,995 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Going back to February 1994 when we began the process of raising rates, I remind the Committee that at that time the unemployment rate was still above the natural rate and inflation was still coming down. We made the very wise and prudent decision to take a forward-looking stance on monetary po... | 676 |
fomc | 1,995 | President McTeer. | 5 |
fomc | 1,995 | I can be brief; I planned to say a lot about the debt aggregate! [Laughter] We probably have one negative quarter in the bag and we may have a second in the bag. If we do, that will be embarrassing. It will be called a recession; and if we have a recession in the second and third quarters, looking back on it in the fut... | 393 |
fomc | 1,995 | President Minehan. | 4 |
fomc | 1,995 | This is a fairly difficult policy decision for me. When I reviewed all the materials for this meeting, I realized that any decision that I would make would really depend on the interplay of three different factors. The first relates to my own preference among the three longer-run policy alternatives that Don laid out, ... | 639 |
fomc | 1,995 | President Boehne. | 5 |
fomc | 1,995 | I think a quarter-point drop in the funds rate is the right amount at the right time, along with an asymmetric directive. The current level of monetary restraint has helped cause more of a correction and associated downside risks than we preferred. A cautious move toward less restraint, therefore, would help shore up d... | 245 |
fomc | 1,995 | President Hoenig. | 4 |
fomc | 1,995 | Mr. Chairman, after listening to the Committee's discusion yesterday and today, one of the things that strikes me--it feeds a little bit off the Bluebook--is that if we take the outcome in the baseline forecast as reasonable and desirable, then we might go with a no-change policy. In our own Bank's view and in my view ... | 321 |
fomc | 1,995 | President Jordan. | 3 |
fomc | 1,995 | I think the appropriate criterion for choosing a stance of monetary policy is whether we feel it is a move toward the objective of stabilizing the purchasing power of the dollar. An inappropriate criterion would be either somebody's idea about what the impact of fiscal multipliers was going to be, assuming we knew how ... | 521 |
fomc | 1,995 | Vice Chairman. | 3 |
fomc | 1,995 | Mr. Chairman, policy changes should not be based on reaction to present data, but rather on our views of the economy and prices about 18 months from now. I say that because if we were dealing only with a response to recent data I would want to keep policy unchanged because I don't like the price numbers that we have se... | 450 |
fomc | 1,995 | President Moskow. | 4 |
fomc | 1,995 | Mr. Chairman, I believe that we should be forward-looking in setting our monetary policy. While we had two or three months of bad numbers, there is still a lot of uncertainty about the economy's underlying strength. As you mentioned, some of the more recent data that we have seen on housing and orders for durable goods... | 394 |
fomc | 1,995 | President Stern. | 3 |
fomc | 1,995 | I will make only a couple of points. I think the decision does not hinge--some people have made this point already--on the current weakness in the economy or even prospective weakness, at least of the type we have been talking about. In part that is because of the well recognized lags in policy; there is not much we ca... | 283 |
fomc | 1,995 | President Broaddus. | 5 |
fomc | 1,995 | I am very much where Tom Melzer is. If I were a voting member, I would support your recommendation, Mr. Chairman, although I must say with a considerable degree of nervousness. That kind of nervousness has been underscored by Tom Hoenig and some others. There seems to be a feeling--calling it a consensus may be too str... | 303 |
fomc | 1,995 | Governor Kelley. | 3 |
fomc | 1,995 | Mr. Chairman, as I said yesterday, I think that we have the flexibility here to move for positive and affirmative reasons as opposed to negative and defensive ones. Based on my reading of the likely outlook, I don't see us as driven primarily by the specter of a collapsing economy, although I would certainly concur tha... | 313 |
fomc | 1,995 | Governor Phillips. | 3 |
fomc | 1,995 | I also think that the baseline projection is probably the most reasonable, but I would support a 25 basis point move as insurance in the sense of not being 100 percent sure about how our forecast of the inventory correction is going to work out. I must say that I vacillate on this question of symmetry or asymmetry. I g... | 119 |
fomc | 1,995 | Governor Yellen. | 4 |
fomc | 1,995 | Mr. Chairman, I support your recommendation to lower the funds rate today. As I already emphasized, I am concerned about downside risks and the possibility of destabilizing feedbacks that could weaken the economy more than the Greenbook envisions. On the inflation side, I think a funds rate cut is consistent with our l... | 867 |
fomc | 1,995 | Thank you. A cut of 25 basis points with asymmetric language seems to be the general consensus. Would you give us wording on how that would read? | 31 |
fomc | 1,995 | I am reading from page 25 in the Bluebook: "In the implementation of policy for the immediate future, the Committee seeks to decrease slightly the existing degree of pressure on reserve positions. In the context of the Committee's long-run objectives for price stability and sustainable economic growth, and giving caref... | 110 |
fomc | 1,995 | I hate to raise the "slightly" versus "somewhat" issue, but if we are moving only 25 basis points, then we should make it "slightly." | 36 |
fomc | 1,995 | Yes, I think you are right. | 8 |
fomc | 1,995 | Yes. | 2 |
fomc | 1,995 | Let's go to "slightly." | 7 |
fomc | 1,995 | "Slightly" for both? | 7 |
fomc | 1,995 | Yes. Call the roll. | 6 |
fomc | 1,995 | Chairman Greenspan Yes Vice Chairman McDonough Yes Governor Blinder Yes President Hoenig No Governor Kelley Yes Governor Lindsey Yes President Melzer Yes President Minehan Yes President Moskow Yes Governor Phillips Yes Governor Yellen Yes | 44 |
fomc | 1,995 | Our next meeting is August 22? | 8 |
fomc | 1,995 | Yes. | 2 |
fomc | 1,995 | Contrary to the original plan, we are going to have lunch here since apparently the air conditioning is holding up reasonably well. | 25 |
fomc | 1,995 | Is there a press release? | 6 |
fomc | 1,995 | I am sorry. The draft reads as follows: "Chairman Alan Greenspan announced today that the Federal Open Market Committee decided to decrease slightly the degree of pressure on reserve positions. As a result of the monetary tightening initiated in early 1994, inflationary pressures have receded enough to accommodate a mo... | 121 |
fomc | 1,995 | Mr. Chairman, is it possible to add one final sentence there that says "This action is taken in the context of our longer-term commitment to price stability"? | 32 |
fomc | 1,995 | I thought of doing that but I concluded that such an addition would make the statement too complex. I think the issue is that we are not responding to an expectation of a recession. We are responding to the fact that we have succeeded in reducing inflationary pressures enough so that the adjustment makes sense for the ... | 111 |
fomc | 1,995 | What time does this announcement come out? | 8 |
fomc | 1,995 | 2:00 - 2:15 p.m. What do you want to do, Joe? | 20 |
fomc | 1,995 | 2:15 p.m. | 6 |
fomc | 1,995 | 2:15 p.m. | 6 |
fomc | 1,995 | Is there a good reason it can't be earlier? | 10 |
fomc | 1,995 | Don, why don't you-- | 6 |
fomc | 1,995 | We have tried to establish a regular time so that people, not knowing exactly when it would come out, would not be hovering over the Telerate machines and reading great amounts of meaning into the timing of the release, how long you argued about policy, or whatever. So, we thought it was better to establish a routine t... | 97 |
fomc | 1,995 | Why don't we adjourn and go to lunch? | 10 |
fomc | 1,995 | This is the first meeting in our rejuvenated Board Room. The map of the Federal Reserve Districts has been enhanced but not redrawn, so your Districts are what they were; you need not worry about that. However, as in the old James Bond movies, there are a lot of buttons here that you can't see. If I push one in an appr... | 113 |
fomc | 1,995 | I support your proposal. | 5 |
fomc | 1,995 | Whatever it is! | 4 |
fomc | 1,995 | Will this be part of the transcript to be released five years from now? [Laughter] | 19 |
fomc | 1,995 | It's recorded. | 3 |
fomc | 1,995 | I don't think there is anything else that has to be discussed with respect to the Board Room. What you see is what you get. We will soon find out if it is a major improvement or just more expense. [Laughter] We have with us today First Vice President Colleen Strand from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. She is a... | 94 |
fomc | 1,995 | So moved. | 3 |
fomc | 1,995 | Second. | 2 |
fomc | 1,995 | The July 5-6 minutes have been moved and approved. We now turn to Peter Fisher for his report on foreign currency and domestic open market operations during the period since the July meeting. | 38 |
fomc | 1,995 | [Statement--see Appendix.] | 6 |
fomc | 1,995 | Questions for Peter? | 4 |
fomc | 1,995 | Peter, in the absence of financial difficulties in Japan, would the U.S. Treasury on its own have supported actions in the market to increase the value of the dollar? | 34 |
fomc | 1,995 | You're asking me to put myself inside their minds. I am a little squeamish about doing that. | 21 |
fomc | 1,995 | I'm not really asking that. I am asking what the driving reason was behind these interventions. Why did the U.S. Treasury perceive that there was a problem with the foreign exchange value of the dollar independent of Japan, which is what Secretary Rubin implied in his comments after the intervention? Or was that a way ... | 84 |
fomc | 1,995 | I don't see it as an either/or situation. I think the Treasury feels very strongly about the commitment made in the G-7 communique in April that they were seeking an orderly reversal of previous exchange rate moves. At that point, they were referring to the downward movement of the dollar from January through the end o... | 214 |
fomc | 1,995 | Yes, but there are two issues here. First, there is a sort of long-term mindset about why you intervene. You intervene to counteract disorderly markets, at least that's the received wisdom coming through the Fed. Second, who really knows the right value of the dollar? There are winners and losers for any value of the d... | 88 |
fomc | 1,995 | I think the Treasury is looking at the decline of the dollar from January through the spring and seeing that as something that is not positive for U.S. financial markets or the perception of the U.S. economy. It's really the time horizon that is involved here. You can think about disorderly markets as a fifteen minute ... | 114 |
fomc | 1,995 | But it seems to me that is a different position than the one that I at least have been led to understand is our position vis-a-vis defending the dollar, to use that old terminology. But second, once the winners and losers have been decided over a period of a week after exchange market instability settles down, it looks... | 107 |
fomc | 1,995 | I think this Treasury has tried to shy away from putting it so pithily. They are trying very hard to shake the image that there is any effort to depreciate ourselves into prosperity. So that would be their rather direct rebuttal to the point you are making. They are trying to shake that image. | 62 |
fomc | 1,995 | It's just an interesting change, at least to me, in perspective. | 14 |
fomc | 1,995 | President Minehan, in addition the Treasury has been seeking opportunities in market conditions where its intervention would have a positive effect and where it might ride a rally where one was already occurring. So they piggybacked on the various measures that the Japanese took with regard to external investments, and... | 90 |
fomc | 1,995 | So you think that this is an-- | 8 |
fomc | 1,995 | They found an opportune time. | 8 |
fomc | 1,995 | Right, and are they going to try to do this a few times to prove the point that intervention can be successful so that when we have a disorderly market and they do intervene it works? Is that the logic here? Or are they seeking some particular foreign exchange value for the dollar? | 58 |
fomc | 1,995 | I am not aware of any exchange rate target or particular objective other than the sense that the dollar was a bit low this spring. | 26 |
fomc | 1,995 | Let me say that I think the Treasury people are aware that they cannot do this very much more without falling into the trap, where they basically are intervening all the time to no effect. My impression is that this is the end of the series. We have not been behind the Treasury pushing them in this direction, to say th... | 255 |
fomc | 1,995 | So moved. | 3 |
fomc | 1,995 | Second. | 2 |
fomc | 1,995 | Without objection. Would somebody like to move to ratify the domestic open market transactions since the last meeting? | 21 |
fomc | 1,995 | So moved. | 3 |
fomc | 1,995 | Second. | 2 |
fomc | 1,995 | Without objection. Let's now move on to the economic situation. Are you going to use the big screens for your presentation? | 24 |
fomc | 1,995 | I'm not going to inaugurate the screens. | 9 |
fomc | 1,995 | I'm disappointed. We have new technologies here that enhance the economic outlook, I do believe. | 18 |
fomc | 1,995 | I'm not sure the screens will enhance the quality of the forecast! | 13 |
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