Source stringclasses 1
value | Date int64 1.98k 2.01k | Text stringlengths 2 27.1k | Token_count int64 1 5.57k |
|---|---|---|---|
fomc | 1,999 | I as well. | 4 |
fomc | 1,999 | President McTeer. | 5 |
fomc | 1,999 | Let sleeping wolves lie. [Laughter] | 9 |
fomc | 1,999 | Governor Kelley. | 3 |
fomc | 1,999 | I concur, Mr. Chairman. | 7 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Hoenig. | 4 |
fomc | 1,999 | Yes. | 2 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Poole. | 4 |
fomc | 1,999 | Yes. | 2 |
fomc | 1,999 | Why don't we have a single vote then? Will you read the paragraph? | 15 |
fomc | 1,999 | This language is shown on page 21 of the Bluebook: "The Federal Open Market Committee seeks monetary and financial conditions that will foster price stability and promote sustainable growth in output. In furtherance of these objectives, the Committee reaffirmed at this meeting the ranges it had established in February ... | 200 |
fomc | 1,999 | Shall we vote? | 5 |
fomc | 1,999 | Chairman Greenspan Yes Vice Chairman McDonough Yes President Boehne Yes Governor Ferguson Yes Governor Gramlich Yes Governor Kelley Yes President McTeer Yes Governor Meyer Yes President Moskow Yes President Stern Yes | 41 |
fomc | 1,999 | Thank you very much. Mr. Kohn. | 10 |
fomc | 1,999 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The long-run strategies section of the Bluebook highlighted two potential imbalances shaping the U.S. economic outlook. One, the domestic saving/investment imbalance and the related current account deficit, has been a continuing concern to policymakers. Although the contrasting cyclical circums... | 2,749 |
fomc | 1,999 | Questions for Don? | 4 |
fomc | 1,999 | Could I ask about the change in the saving rate and the equilibrium interest rate that you talked about in the earlier portion of your remarks? Your comments seemed to imply that you do not perceive the current saving rate as the ultimate equilibrium rate and that you believe saving is going to move back toward the equ... | 179 |
fomc | 1,999 | I think it's all part of the same phenomenon. The wealth-to-income ratio declines for a couple of reasons. One is that equity prices don't rise so rapidly relative to current income. There is a projected flattening out in the next two years, as you know, and very modest increases thereafter in the equity wealth-to-inco... | 302 |
fomc | 1,999 | What about the equilibrium interest rate? We had some discussions previously about the role of the increase in the productivity trend in raising the equilibrium real interest rate. It levels out but at a higher level. | 39 |
fomc | 1,999 | Right. | 2 |
fomc | 1,999 | How do we sort that out in terms of what happens to the equilibrium rate when all is said and done? | 22 |
fomc | 1,999 | Well, when all is said and done, it ought to be at a higher rate than it was four years ago. | 24 |
fomc | 1,999 | Okay. | 2 |
fomc | 1,999 | But it ought to be at a lower rate than it is currently given the low rate of saving out of income and a very rapid rate of investment. As productivity growth levels out, investment tends also to level out. So the equilibrium interest rate should be lower later than it is now and on a downtrend as saving picks up, but ... | 85 |
fomc | 1,999 | Thank you. | 3 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Hoenig. | 4 |
fomc | 1,999 | Don, I am going to try to ask this question clearly. In the Bluebook and in your comments you touched on a couple of issues. One was whether we need to move 50 basis points over the course of this year and then how we might go forward from there. My question is: If one were to assume for the moment that we will need to... | 233 |
fomc | 1,999 | If you were confident that you needed to move 50 basis points and it wasn't really dependent on the incoming data over the next couple of months, I don't think there would be anything gained by doing 25 now and waiting to do 25 later. So, in the case where you were confident that you needed to do 50 and didn't want to ... | 516 |
fomc | 1,999 | Thank you. | 3 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Parry. | 4 |
fomc | 1,999 | Don, I have a question about the long-term simulations. Both of them indicate that there is a lot to do in terms of policy in the next year or two to reach our objectives. Since obviously we don't have much detail here, I was interested in hearing your views on the impacts of the alternative simulations relative to whe... | 211 |
fomc | 1,999 | Let me take the second one first. We have built in a market learning process in the price stability alternative. The public, not just the markets but businesses and households, learn about this over about two years. So in some sense the actual goal is phased in and then the markets' learning about it is phased in. We s... | 173 |
fomc | 1,999 | I see. | 3 |
fomc | 1,999 | It obviously includes effects on exchange rates and the stock market and that sort of thing. But what it doesn't include is some nonlinearity, shall we say. It doesn't take into account some unusual reactions that might occur because foreign economies, say, or even domestic financial markets are unusually nervous or un... | 147 |
fomc | 1,999 | Okay, thank you. | 5 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Jordan. | 3 |
fomc | 1,999 | Thank you. Don, the discussion about wealth, permanent income, measures of income and savings and all that in a domestic context is certainly very important. We're seeing more focus not on the creation of wealth but on the sharing of the wealth in a domestic context. We saw in the Chairman's JEC testimony recently some... | 304 |
fomc | 1,999 | This is similar, in my mind, to what Karen was showing in the Chart Show yesterday--that is, the possibility of a portfolio shift in which dollar assets become less attractive relative to foreign assets, not because dollar assets are less attractive but because foreign assets are more attractive. From your perspective ... | 242 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Moskow. | 4 |
fomc | 1,999 | Don, I think we all feel that probably the most important thing this Committee has going for it is our credibility, the credibility of the Chairman. I was wondering about the effects on our credibility if we took the last option that you presented--if we went up 25 basis points and returned to symmetry--but soon felt t... | 141 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Moskow, I don't think I am concerned if your concerns and your outlook are accurately expressed in the announcement and the Chairman's testimony. That is, you could move to symmetry but still express the view that the major development you're most concerned about that would threaten the good performance of th... | 324 |
fomc | 1,999 | You obviously don't feel that the very strong reaction to the tilt announcement at the last meeting changes the historical view of how people look at our making a move from symmetry. | 33 |
fomc | 1,999 | My concern actually would be the other way. After you announced your tilted directive, a lot of observers noted that it had had very little meaning in the past--that only a small proportion of such directives had actually led to a tightening. But somehow that tilt put the spotlight on the Federal Reserve. And the inter... | 164 |
fomc | 1,999 | May I ask a follow-up question on that? | 10 |
fomc | 1,999 | Go ahead. | 3 |
fomc | 1,999 | Maybe this question is for Peter Fisher since it has to do with the markets; I don't know. Wouldn't a switch to symmetry suggest that the risks are in fact balanced? | 35 |
fomc | 1,999 | My view is that you can give a sense that the risks are not balanced, but they're just not so unbalanced that you see a high probability of action at the next meeting. Yes, we're slicing the baloney very thin here! [Laughter] I think the Committee is in a very difficult position. The attention on its statements has bec... | 261 |
fomc | 1,999 | Vice Chair. | 3 |
fomc | 1,999 | Don, even though in the 1994-1995 period we didn't announce a tilt until after the following meeting, do I remember correctly that we did seven consecutive firming moves and that each and every one of them was from a symmetric directive? | 50 |
fomc | 1,999 | I know that we went to symmetry after each move. I'm not sure of the subsequent moves because they weren't at every meeting. Sometimes we skipped a meeting. I don't know. Norm Bernard, do you know whether the subsequent moves were from a symmetric directive? I know that every tightening was accompanied by a shift to sy... | 79 |
fomc | 1,999 | And the world didn't think that we had stopped being a responsible central bank just because we went to a symmetric directive? That's a question! | 27 |
fomc | 1,999 | I guess not! [Laughter] | 8 |
fomc | 1,999 | That's a good answer. | 5 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Parry. | 4 |
fomc | 1,999 | Don, do you believe that the markets in the future will view a change in symmetry as a change in policy? | 23 |
fomc | 1,999 | I'd say they would view a change from a symmetrical to an asymmetrical directive as being a strong forecast of the next move. I guess one concern would be that they might come to interpret it as a stronger forecast than the Committee intended. Now, this may come out of the Committee's attempt to retain as a policy choi... | 404 |
fomc | 1,999 | Any further questions for Don? | 6 |
fomc | 1,999 | I have just one quick question and perhaps I should direct it to Peter Fisher. Peter, is there any active discussion--and if so, to what degree--that market participants are looking at the symmetry/asymmetry decision as opposed to the move itself at this meeting? How much explicit discussion is there of that? | 63 |
fomc | 1,999 | I think a great deal of the markets' attention over the last couple of weeks has not been on how many basis points the Fed will move at this meeting but on what the wording of the announcement will be and whether there will be symmetry. Our traders have responded to foreign central banks wanting to know the rules this ... | 88 |
fomc | 1,999 | That's what I thought. I just wanted to make sure. | 12 |
fomc | 1,999 | They are interested in the process. | 7 |
fomc | 1,999 | I think the more general point, President Broaddus, is that what the world is really interested in is the Committee's views of where it is going from here. They have the 25 basis points built in. Now they want whatever clues they can get about where you are going; the symmetry/asymmetry is a clue but it may not be the ... | 75 |
fomc | 1,999 | I'm trying to figure out how to do that. | 10 |
fomc | 1,999 | Any further questions for Don? If not, let me get started by saying that I think we have to move at this meeting, but before I comment on that I would like to bring a much broader issue into the discussion. The reason is that, at least from my point of view, that issue comes to grips with a number of the crucial questi... | 3,918 |
fomc | 1,999 | Very interesting. | 3 |
fomc | 1,999 | Vice Chairman. | 3 |
fomc | 1,999 | Mr. Chairman, I agree fully with your recommendation and let me explain why. In my view there is no question that we should raise the fed funds rate. A failure to do so would create an extraordinarily strong reaction in markets; I think the first trade would be up and I'm not quite sure where the second trade would be ... | 924 |
fomc | 1,999 | Governor Kelley. | 3 |
fomc | 1,999 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, let me thank you for those extremely provocative remarks. I look forward to working on digesting them as soon as the transcript is available to us. But on a much more prosaic level, let me say initially that I strongly support your recommendation. I think there are two sets of rea... | 743 |
fomc | 1,999 | Governor Meyer. | 3 |
fomc | 1,999 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Greenbook forecast, which is not far from either the consensus forecast or my own, suggests that we will not be able to stabilize inflation at an acceptable rate without multiple tightening moves. Given the risk of higher inflation, the 50 basis point tightening this year that is incorporat... | 1,716 |
fomc | 1,999 | Governor Gramlich. | 4 |
fomc | 1,999 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am at least a modified new economy kind of guy. I have argued in the past here that there is reason to believe that we have had a shift up in productivity and a shift down in NAIRU. The staff models have incorporated this and, as I said yesterday, I'd be willing to take their modification as ... | 883 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Broaddus. | 5 |
fomc | 1,999 | Mr. Chairman, I respectfully but strongly would oppose the move back to symmetric directive language. If I read market expectations at all accurately, I think market participants are widely expecting the 1/4 point move and they are also expecting a further move of at least 1/4 point in the not too distant future. So if... | 1,185 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Jordan. | 3 |
fomc | 1,999 | Thank you. I certainly agree that a move today is appropriate. As far as the strength of the action and the way it's interpreted, I'd prefer to do that with or without discount rate increases. Since I believe that a stronger action now is appropriate, I hope the Board will consider the issue of the discount rate on beh... | 102 |
fomc | 1,999 | I might buy that! | 5 |
fomc | 1,999 | The happy state of affairs is one where the collective view of the group, when we meet, is that the risks are in fact balanced. I prefer symmetry in our behavior more than in our words, and it troubles me when there's asymmetry in our behavior with or without asymmetry in our words. Last fall, when the opinion of the C... | 618 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Boehne. | 5 |
fomc | 1,999 | I think we do need to raise the funds rate 25 basis points today. It seems to me that we are largely boxed in by our rhetoric and we ought to do it and get this episode behind us. There is a reasonable economic rationale for this, given the uncertainty that we're facing, and that is a "take-back" rationale from last fa... | 379 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Parry. | 4 |
fomc | 1,999 | Mr. Chairman, I support your recommendation for a 25 basis point increase. I would favor asymmetry because I think it more correctly reflects what I believe the risks are to the outlook and policy. I would be against symmetry because I fear first of all that, in itself, it doesn't correctly reflect our assessment of th... | 136 |
fomc | 1,999 | Governor Ferguson. | 3 |
fomc | 1,999 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, support your recommendation for a 25 basis point tightening at this stage. We are in a period of some uncertainty and we should weigh the data a little more heavily than the forecast. I think the data support a small move. The forecast, with a 50 basis point increase built in, is perhap... | 370 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Hoenig. | 4 |
fomc | 1,999 | Mr. Chairman, I support your recommendation. I came into this meeting wanting at least a discussion of a 50 basis point increase, and I got that, which I appreciate very much. It was very helpful. Along those lines and in listening to you, my assessment has been shaded in terms of the issue--the issue being the degree ... | 249 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Guynn. | 4 |
fomc | 1,999 | Mr. Chairman, I support your recommendation of a 1/4 point tightening. My thoughts on symmetry mirror Bob Parry's very closely and the views Larry Meyer and Al Broaddus expressed earlier. I judge the sentiment around the table, certainly my own, as a judgment that one 25 basis point tightening is probably not enough to... | 462 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Poole. | 4 |
fomc | 1,999 | Mr. Chairman, I support the recommendation for a 25 basis point increase in the federal funds rate. I think the issue on symmetry is complicated by the fact that the language in the directive refers explicitly to the intermeeting period. The sentiment around the table seems to be that we may or may not need an increase... | 829 |
fomc | 1,999 | Which line numbers? | 4 |
fomc | 1,999 | The document begins with "the general paragraph," which says: "The information reviewed at this meeting suggests a continued vigorous expansion in economic activity." In other words, we start off by talking about economic activity. What I'm suggesting is that we start off by talking about the inflation environment. The... | 179 |
fomc | 1,999 | Let me make a suggestion. Clearly, we can't do it now because it will create a problem. | 20 |
fomc | 1,999 | Right. | 2 |
fomc | 1,999 | Why don't you write a memorandum and give it to Don Kohn. He will circulate it to the rest of the Committee and will collect comments. If there is sufficient support for your position, we could bring it to the next meeting for determination. Is that satisfactory? | 53 |
fomc | 1,999 | Absolutely. In the press release for this meeting, if there is a press release, we could put the emphasis on inflation and productivity growth and the uncertainties about them ahead of the discussion of the real economy. Anyway, I throw that out just as a possibility. Let me say that I continue to believe that greater ... | 626 |
fomc | 1,999 | President Stern. | 3 |
fomc | 1,999 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, favor a 1/4 point increase in the fed funds rate. I think it's appropriate economically and the markets are prepared for it. As far as the question of symmetry is concerned, I am on this issue where I usually am, which is that I have a deep-seated, built-in bias toward symmetry. So, I f... | 258 |
fomc | 1,999 | President McTeer. | 5 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.