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fomc
1,978
We=ll go back and ask: How many now want 5 to 10? That takes care of that. All right we=ve got 5 to 10.
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I think 6 to 10--
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Now on M2, what is your pleasure? How about 6 to 11? All right, let=s say 6 to 10. How many will accept that? It looks like a clear majority. We, therefore, need a final vote, Mr. Secretary.
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Mr. Chairman, there was some earlier reference to moving from 7-1/2 to 7-3/4 but there was no comment in connection to the additional 1/4 point of the range. Is there any need for comment to clarify that?
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As I read the consensus, it was the 7-1/2 to 8 percent range, moving to 7-3/4 by the end of the week and thereafter operating on the directive. If we have strong aggregates, we go to 8. We=re going to put [that] in the language. The language would read "During the period until the next regular meeting, System open mark...
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Mr. Chairman, in the background paragraphs, on line 17, according to the latest data we should change the 1-1/2 percent to 2 percent--that being the decline in the trade-weighted value of the dollar against major foreign currencies as of this morning.
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It would read 2 percent instead of 1-1/2. Now call the roll on the directive as outlined.
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Chairman Miller Yes Vice Chairman Volcker Yes President Baughman Yes Governor Coldwell Yes President Eastburn Yes Governor Gardner Yes Governor Jackson Yes Governor Partee Yes Governor Wallich Yes President Willis No President Winn No Nine to two.
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We have a vote. Thank you all very much. Now we need to consider in the next seven minutes the memorandum that Steve Axilrod and Peter Sternlight have been putting together as their great debate. It may go on forever since we never seem to get to it. I don=t think we=re going to sell any agencies if we never get to thi...
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Maybe that=s part of the plan.
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Is it so urgent that we can=t put it over [to the next meeting]?
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The only practical problem may be that I think Peter has been somewhat reluctant to undertake his normal operations in agency issues because this is pending. If he felt free to do that, I see no problems in holding.
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In sales you mean?
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Both sales and purchases.
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fomc
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Well, you all have had this before you for a couple of meetings. What is your pleasure?
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Mr. Chairman, I wonder if there isn=t a halfway house we could go with, without going into the full details. We could just ask the Desk to stop its rollover of new issues to reduce its portfolio and do some reduced buying.
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Gentlemen?
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That sounds all right to me--if I may enter in here--but in general I am [unintelligible] on the Axilrod side of this. It seems to me that we pay too much tender loving care to these agency issues and treat them too much as a special case. If we=re going to use them, we ought to use them flexibly on both sides as [unin...
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I don=t fully understand Phil=s suggestion.
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Phil is saying that on rollovers don=t roll them over, thereby reducing the portfolio.
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Reduce your degree of buying
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Reduce your buying and therefore cut back some.
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Are you saying never roll them over? I didn=t understand that it was never roll them over but when it fits in with some other--
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How quickly would we eliminate the existing stock?
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Well, he=s not suggesting--again, as I understand it--that you automatically not roll them over. If you happen to be liquidating at that time you might not roll over some of them, or maybe roll over some small amount.
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It just reduces the degree but without going into a heavy or visible selling program at a time when I don=t think we ought to be giving that kind of signal to the market.
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But is your comment to reduce buying?
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May I ask the Desk what this would imply in terms of maturity and how many are coming up? I don=t have to have specifics but I think we need to have some [idea].
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Mr. Chairman, I=m sorry I made the suggestion. I thought maybe we might be able to buy ourselves out of this quickly. But we apparently can=t.
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Mr. Chairman, we have a very simple suggestion, I think. It simply is that the Desk cut down a little bit on its buying, which it has done already--probably more so than it would have if the decision had already been made. And that wouldn=t be inconsistent with occasionally letting an agency [issue] run off, just as oc...
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You didn=t ask us if you could do all that.
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In some sense, Mr. Sternlight and I view this as a rather simple--
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Why don=t you fellows work it out?
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Yes.
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Mr. Chairman, I think this is a singularly bad time to be talking about any significant reduction in our participation in the agency market. Here we=ve been talking all morning long about the fact that housing is going to go down and that mortgage markets are tighter, and all this means that there=s going to be a bigge...
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We=re not--or at least I=m not--saying systematically don=t roll them over. I=m saying, I think, what Steve Axilrod said: [Do so] occasionally if it fits the pattern.
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To try to lighten a little over time.
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We are buying on the other side, so maybe we don=t actually go down on total agency holdings.
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We=re also getting in a position where we need collateral.
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Those are minor issues.
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Not that minor.
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I think we need to bear in mind that if our discussion this afternoon should ultimately lead to significant reductions in reserve requirements, the consequences could well be that our capacity to collateralize currency would be impaired. And that in and of itself could influence our actions on something unrelated to th...
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Gentlemen, would there be a show of hands of those who would like to see us affirmatively selling out issues of agencies at this point?
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A little selling.
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On a small scale.
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Occasional selling.
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Not in this present market.
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We=re talking now; if we instruct the Desk to do this, it will be [effective] now. How many would prefer to not have that happen?
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Mr. Chairman, you don=t mean that the Desk would have to go out and sell?
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No, we would authorize the Desk to carry out the objective you had in mind in your recommendation, giving due consideration to the market conditions, and to demonstrate that there is another side of agency holdings. The timing is to be selected with great care and judgment and prudently.
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About 1980 I=d buy it.
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Apparently there was a majority of the Committee unless I misread it. Who=d be willing to give Steve and Peter that [authority] now?
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Mr. Chairman, while I=m willing to give that, it seems to me that Phil Coldwell=s suggestion of just letting them run off is a preferable one.
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Well, they are able to do that now.
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Let them sell agricultural ones and support the housing ones, not on the record.
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Would you like to vote again? I got a pretty strong sentiment that we would authorize you to go ahead, recognizing the cautions and constraints.
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I think they should have the authority, but that doesn=t mean that they should go ahead just to make a demonstration [in] the market.
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Exactly. The next item of business is to confirm the [date of the] next meeting, which is Tuesday, July 18. And the next item of business is an executive session for five minutes. [Executive Session]
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Gentlemen, we are going to have John Denkler here in a moment, but you have seen the memo and we have a serious problem. Microwave communications can be intercepted. There is a general feeling that they are being intercepted and on a number of our actions where there are market consequences, [the information obtained] ...
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The problem that has caused us to place this emphasis on security is that of the vulnerability of telephone communications to intercept. We have studied this problem rather extensively, and essentially [the situation] is that, as now used, telephone communications rely very heavily on microwave relay and as some of you...
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Gentlemen, this presents a couple of problems for us. We were very reluctant to spend approximately $500,000 for an inter-connect, which is the cost of equipment that would allow us to link up the twelve Reserve Banks and Washington, in an area where probably technology in a few years will make it more likely to be acc...
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Let me ask, Mr. Chairman, how good is this scrambler now? The scramblers that we've used in the past were practically impossible to understand.
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This uses a new technique. It digitizes the signal. I have used it and Steve has used it and it worked well between here and New York.
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Rome Air Force Base developed this for the military and it=s only in prototype. One of the risks here is that we'd be one of the first buyers, although the test that John has conducted--
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It=s the best-grade system that we have. In point of fact, it very marginally degrades the voice signal. You will notice that you are on a scrambler, but when it works properly, it=s a good system security-wise.
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What will happen in the next few years is that micro processors will develop and digital techniques will develop and you will be able to get very high quality signals at much lower cost, I think.
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The old [scrambler device] was so annoying to use.
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That was an analog. Those old analog systems were terrible.
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Alan.
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Do I understand that each installation can have five handsets that can be used?
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That is correct.
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That is in New York and Washington--at each terminal.
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That=s correct. Dialing would have to be centralized, but any one extension could talk to any other extension at the other end.
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Now, we need to discipline ourselves on all of our telephone calls. I am guilty of talking about sensitive matters on the phone with any of you or anybody else just because this has never been brought to my attention as a serious risk. But apparently, without saying more, we feel that it is a current risk and may be be...
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What about the security of the wire?
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Well, once you use the scrambler--
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fomc
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No, I=m talking about the daily FOMC wire.
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The wire? The current state of the market is known. If we don't give out dealer positions, which are not known, and the program to be executed and inform you of that after its execution has started-- When do you send out the wire? You do that within a couple of hours, don=t you?
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We send it out very promptly. It goes out within 30 or 45 minutes. How long it takes to get there, I=m not sure.
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Are you asking if that information is secure?
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Yes.
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What is the answer to that?
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Well, it's relatively insecure, but more secure than the telephone. It could be intercepted.
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That it=s after the fact is the main security. In fact, we may have to make sure we hold those wires until an hour after the fact or something so that we don=t get [unintelligible]. Now, the problem is a very clear-cut one. Would the Presidents be willing to do their surveillance on the basis of [knowing the program] a...
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And we would run a monitoring [from the Board]?
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Without myself participating, I would recommend that one of the Governors here rotate [as a participant on the call] to keep a second monitor under those conditions so that there is somebody from the Committee who is alerted at all times. Yes?
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Bill, relating to this subject of security--I was involved in the service and probably some of the rest of you [were also]--and it seems to me that this might be a good time to review our whole security system in terms of the documents we receive. When we receive [communications designated] "eyes only" or "restricted c...
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We need to upgrade our security all around and I think we need some instruction. As I say, I have been guilty of picking up the phone to someone in Washington and they ask me a question and I give them the answer. It will be terribly inconvenient, but in many cases I think we are going to have to wait [to discuss some ...
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No, I asked that question. Would this be a problem?
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It=s mostly against the rules.
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[The President on the call] raises questions and usually it is after the fact. That=s why I didn=t think a shift of procedure would be that objectionable. But I didn=t want to [do] it without a full Committee discussion to get your sense of what you would like to see us do.
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By way of one response to your question, I would see no serious erosion of the surveillance if we picked [the information] up either a few hours late or a day late.
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Does anybody disagree with that? Are you agreeable for us to proceed with this program and let John implement it as soon as we can? We=ll post you on procedures as soon as we can get organized.
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One minor thought, Mr. Chairman.
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Yes.
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John, would it be safe if you transmitted the wire over the facsimile--over the land lines rather than over the Federal Reserve communication network?
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Yes, for the same reason.
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Yes, that=s what we want to do. When we get the land lines, we want to use them for the facsimile.
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Bob, if I could comment on that particular question. Our staff is looking at a side issue of this and that is the possible development of a System-wide facsimile transmission system that would be far superior to anything that we have now.
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Faster, cheaper, and more secure--and that would help.
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