Source stringclasses 1
value | Date int64 1.98k 2.01k | Text stringlengths 2 27.1k | Token_count int64 1 5.57k |
|---|---|---|---|
fomc | 2,001 | Well, that was helpful. The reason I'm raising the issue is that intuitively I think one thing that should not be allowed to happen is for the stock of central bank liquidity to decline inadvertently because of operational procedures. So I was judgmentally struggling with the data in the Board's H4.1 release for the we... | 194 |
fomc | 2,001 | Actually, I think a large part of the reason central bank liquidity contracted comes through in Dino's inset at the top of page 6, namely that intermediation wasn't functioning when four out of the five federal funds brokers were out of service. As the fed funds market became operational and those with insufficient pos... | 126 |
fomc | 2,001 | Yes, I think that's an important point. A large part of that market was in effect bottled up. | 21 |
fomc | 2,001 | Yes, and I can understand liquidity coming down from the elevated levels immediately after the attacks. But I was comparing the recent figures with those in the week before the attacks, the week ending September 5th. That week may have been atypical because it included the Labor Day weekend; I can't readily make a judg... | 182 |
fomc | 2,001 | The other issue we were facing early in the week after the 17th was that, as a symptom that the financing markets were operating much more efficiently, the liquidity we had provided previously was beginning to have a very telling effect on financing rates and the funds rate. So when we were coming into the market in th... | 237 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you. | 3 |
fomc | 2,001 | I'd like to add just one other point. In establishing a reference point, President Jordan, you might want to go back one or two weeks from September 5th. Reserves are very erratic on a week-to-week basis and it looks as if from a weekly standpoint your base point is a little low relative to the previous two or three we... | 71 |
fomc | 2,001 | Vice Chair. | 3 |
fomc | 2,001 | If I could make a comment, Mr. Chairman? President Jordan's concern, as I understand it, is that there not be some sort of central bank orthodoxy that says that the funds rate target has to be put back in place at a time when it would be inappropriate. Dino in both his presentation and in his answer to one of the quest... | 363 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Minehan. | 4 |
fomc | 2,001 | Just to switch the subject a bit, Dino, you passed over the changes in the yield curve rather quickly. I'm interested in your perception of what the market is thinking about the shape of the yield curve these days and whether the outer end of the curve is a supply issue totally or if it is conveying other information. | 63 |
fomc | 2,001 | That's a good question and one that doesn't have an easy answer. In my own view, the shift is not so much an indication that people view inflationary risks as imminent or that they have very strong expectations of future inflation. I think it reflects more a concern about the fiscal side, given the talk of stimulus com... | 174 |
fomc | 2,001 | But if it's wholly a matter of supply, can't you normalize that judgment against corporate issues? The yield spreads went up and it's very tough to make a judgment, when we see movements like that, as to whether it's a relative supply of Treasury securities vis-a-vis other securities or an aggregate supply effect. Ther... | 166 |
fomc | 2,001 | Any thoughts on how to do that? | 8 |
fomc | 2,001 | I'll work on it! [Laughter] | 9 |
fomc | 2,001 | Any further questions? I believe President Poole moved to ratify the transactions. Is there a second? | 21 |
fomc | 2,001 | Second. | 2 |
fomc | 2,001 | Without objection, they are approved. Thank you very much. Let's move on. We now go to the most important part of the meeting-the most informative, illuminating, and provocative, right? | 38 |
fomc | 2,001 | Well, that fits in perfectly with my introductory remarks. | 11 |
fomc | 2,001 | I wasn't calling on you; I was calling on somebody else! [Laughter] | 17 |
fomc | 2,001 | If I were to scale the length of my remarks this morning to be in proportion to my knowledge about the current state of the economy, then I think it would be fair to say that I have already spoken too long. The terrible events of September 11 have altered the political and economic landscape along so many dimensions th... | 2,174 |
fomc | 2,001 | In trying to come to grips with the implications of recent events for the forecast, we were confident that we knew in which direction to revise foreign growth as a result of information learned since the August Greenbook: down. But it was much less clear to us how to assess the magnitude of that revision for individual... | 1,351 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Moskow. | 4 |
fomc | 2,001 | I wanted to ask you, David, about the psychology question, to use your term. One of the keys to the forecast obviously is consumer sentiment and consumer spending. I realize it's very hard to judge, but I would have thought that consumer sentiment now would be as bad if not worse than in the 1990-91 period following th... | 143 |
fomc | 2,001 | I hope I made clear that I didn't think the probabilities of our assumptions were significantly higher than the probabilities of a lot of others that could be made. Obviously, we thought long and hard about exactly how much of a sentiment effect to build in. I think the reason we ended up going with something less than... | 423 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you. | 3 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Jordan. | 3 |
fomc | 2,001 | Karen, I want to ask you to say a little more about Japan. You mentioned that after the Committee's action on September 17th eight central banks eased policy. Well, that list wouldn't include Japan because in their case there was nothing to announce in terms of a rate cut. For at least some six months now they have bee... | 263 |
fomc | 2,001 | Well, to be honest I did include them in the eight because they cut what they call the overnight discount rate, which is a kind of Lombard rate. Technically it's an official lending rate of the Bank of Japan and they reduced it, so I said okay, they are one of my eight. And I think they intended, both from the timing o... | 426 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Parry. | 4 |
fomc | 2,001 | I had a question about Japan as well. When I look at the tables in Part I of the Greenbook it seems stunning--I don't know if that's the right word--to see with the addition of the forecast for 2003 what will be five years of deflation for Japan and a pickup in economic growth that is quite modest. And, of course, we'v... | 134 |
fomc | 2,001 | Prior to September 11th, I think the people in the International Division who closely watch Japan were trying to talk themselves into being slightly more optimistic about Japan than we had been for a while, and we've been rather pessimistic all along. We were trying to see some energy in the Koizumi reform, although wh... | 353 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you. | 3 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Minehan. | 4 |
fomc | 2,001 | Dave, I was intrigued by the changes in your estimates of structural productivity--1.9 percent in 2001, slowing to 1.5 percent in 2002, and picking up to 1.8 percent in 2003. I know there are close relationships between productivity, capital deepening, and business fixed investment and so forth. We've been looking back... | 194 |
fomc | 2,001 | Basically, if we were to increase the multifactor productivity portion, which is the portion that would provide all the impetus that you were talking about, we would get stronger growth in activity brought about probably by a stronger stock market than we have in the baseline forecast. That stronger growth would probab... | 288 |
fomc | 2,001 | And slightly lower unemployment? | 5 |
fomc | 2,001 | Yes, working it the way that we have told the story and the way the model sees it, we would get stronger near-term demand effects than supply effects and that would produce somewhat lower unemployment. | 39 |
fomc | 2,001 | Further questions? If not, who would like to start the Committee discussion? President Moskow. | 19 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The tragic events of September 11th have had a profound impact on the Seventh District's people, businesses, and economy. The response in terms of the giving of time, money, and blood has been inspiring. As for our District economy, overall activity was sluggish before the terrorist attacks. Ou... | 939 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Parry. | 4 |
fomc | 2,001 | Mr. Chairman, economic activity in the Twelfth District was weak even before the terrorist attacks. Employment contracted in July and then was nearly flat in August. On net it fell about 1 percent at an annual rate in the two months. The main source of weakness was the high-tech sector. High-tech equipment manufacturer... | 984 |
fomc | 2,001 | President McTeer. | 5 |
fomc | 2,001 | One of the minor casualties of September 11th was our educated and informed views and knowledge regarding the state of the economy. That knowledge, such as it was, is now obsolete and there's very little with which to replace it. I agree that our economy will probably be okay in the long run once we get past this unset... | 1,057 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Poole. | 4 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me talk first about conditions as described to me by my various contacts. Because of the obvious importance of consumer confidence, I've had four conversations with my contact at Wal-Mart since September 11th --on the 14th, 17th, 19th, and again yesterday. His overall assessment is that sal... | 1,292 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Stern. | 3 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me start with a quick rundown of what's going on in the District economy. Much of this was in the written report we submitted earlier, although I do have some updates. Production was largely unaffected by the events of September 11th, and that is still the case today. On the other hand, con... | 667 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Hoenig. | 4 |
fomc | 2,001 | Mr. Chairman, the economy in the Tenth District, like that for the nation, remains sluggish. Some people might say it was mixed at best prior to the events of September 11th. Of course since then, as we've heard around this table, the anxiety and uncertainty that was already in the economy took an even greater hit and ... | 945 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Minehan. | 4 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All of the available data on New England suggest that the regional economy slowed, possibly at an increasing rate, in the period since our last Open Market Committee meeting. Employment declined between July and August; each of the states in our District registered a higher unemployment rate. T... | 1,754 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Guynn. | 4 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Atlanta District's economy continued to weaken during the third quarter even prior to September 11th. And like elsewhere, activity has weakened further in most sectors since that time. Auto sales are off and commercial real estate markets continue to soften. The most noticeable effects of t... | 1,070 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Santomero. | 5 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Prior to the attacks, the Third District economy had been flat. Employment continued to decline in the first two months of the third quarter. The manufacturing sector also continued to decline, albeit at a slower pace than earlier in the year. Retail sales remained flat. One sign of a rebound i... | 929 |
fomc | 2,001 | Let's take a break at this stage. Coffee is next door. Let's return in fifteen minutes, please. Thank you. | 24 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Broaddus, will you continue for us? | 11 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Economic activity in our District seems to have advanced at a modest pace in August but it weakened sharply in September. Some of the anecdotal and survey information we've received indicates that activity would have slowed in September even in the absence of the attacks. Of course, we did have... | 1,249 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Jordan. | 3 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me begin with autos. Last week on an Executive Committee conference call one of our directors, a banker, reported on a conversation with one of his customers, an auto dealer. The dealer told the banker that over the prior weekend, September 22-23, only four customers even came into the show... | 1,422 |
fomc | 2,001 | Vice Chair. | 3 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dave Stockton got us off to a wonderful start in admitting just how uncertain we are. Now we are at least as uncertain but with an unbelievable amount of specificity about it! What do we know about the Second District? It was weak going into the tragedy and it is weaker now. One of the results ... | 329 |
fomc | 2,001 | Governor Ferguson. | 3 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As others have said, in the short run we are facing potentially the start of a crisis of confidence both among businesses and households, which is likely to interact with the pre-existing weak macroeconomic environment to lead to a slide in economic activity. Both the length and the depth of th... | 1,053 |
fomc | 2,001 | Governor Kelley. | 3 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, my congratulations to the Greenbook staff for a fine job under impossible conditions. However, as the authors themselves are at pains to point out, this and all other forecasts today can have only a limited credibility. This is evidenced by the quite appropriately wide spectrum of... | 547 |
fomc | 2,001 | Governor Meyer. | 3 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I found the alternative simulations provided by the staff in the latest Greenbook to be especially useful. Given the exceptional degree of uncertainty that we now face, the alternative scenarios help us to better appreciate the range of outcomes. But in addition, they allowed me to easily craft... | 1,363 |
fomc | 2,001 | Governor Gramlich. | 4 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We've often spoken about the value of confidence in economic relationships. Confidence is a variable that is a direct term in no economic equation but is a key factor in almost all of them--consumption, investment, employment, stock markets, risk discounts, foreign trading, capital flows, and o... | 628 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you. Let's move on to Don Kohn. | 11 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As noted in the Committee's announcement of two weeks ago, the terrorist attacks subjected an already weak economy to a further downward shock. Just before September 11th aggregate demand apparently was still being impeded by an ongoing downdraft in investment, as firms corrected a previous ove... | 1,912 |
fomc | 2,001 | Questions for Don? President Parry. | 8 |
fomc | 2,001 | Don, I'd like to ask you and Dave a question about the chart and table in the Bluebook on Chart 4 following page 10. We've talked a bit about the equilibrium real rate as a way to measure the current stance of policy. If one believes that the equilibrium real rate is within the range of the shaded areas, the range has ... | 164 |
fomc | 2,001 | I think the range is particularly wide because the staff forecast is dragging down the lower end of that range. The calculated equilibrium rates that tended to bring the range down are the ones that include the staff estimates of the restraining effects of both the pre-September 11th and post-September 11th shocks to d... | 309 |
fomc | 2,001 | So you think the degree of monetary ease is, pick one: huge, moderate, or meager? | 21 |
fomc | 2,001 | I think right now it's moderate and I--well, I won't give a policy recommendation! [Laughter] | 22 |
fomc | 2,001 | May I make a suggestion? Why don't you have Dave Stockton talk to you about this. He's got it down pat. | 24 |
fomc | 2,001 | It's a little easier for me to answer this question because in some sense I would look at the line on Chart 4 labeled "FRB/US model, based on historical data and the staff forecast" as something that would approximate our best guess as to what the equilibrium rate is. Therefore, I'd have to say monetary policy provides... | 120 |
fomc | 2,001 | I knew you wouldn't disappoint me! [Laughter] | 11 |
fomc | 2,001 | I'm going to stop right there. | 7 |
fomc | 2,001 | Thank you. | 3 |
fomc | 2,001 | Governor Gramlich. | 4 |
fomc | 2,001 | Actually, I was going to ask about what you just discussed, so I withdraw the question in the interest of moving things along. | 26 |
fomc | 2,001 | Governor Meyer. | 3 |
fomc | 2,001 | I wanted to follow up on that discussion of the equilibrium real rate because I think many of us have come to believe that information on this--if we had confidence in it--is very valuable to our setting of policy. I applaud the research that the staff has been doing on this subject; I think it already has provided a l... | 204 |
fomc | 2,001 | Anybody else? In keeping with the way Dave Stockton started off this discussion, I'll continue. I think the wide range of uncertainties regarding what has happened and what is about to happen has been fully explored here and I believe very effectively so. We learn a lot about the uncertainties that we face just by list... | 527 |
fomc | 2,001 | I fully support your recommendation, Mr. Chairman. | 10 |
fomc | 2,001 | Governor Ferguson. | 3 |
fomc | 2,001 | I also support your recommendation. | 6 |
fomc | 2,001 | Governor Meyer. | 3 |
fomc | 2,001 | I support your recommendation. | 5 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Hoenig. | 4 |
fomc | 2,001 | I support your recommendation. I would make just a couple of quick comments that relate to the chart we were talking about a minute ago. One way I looked at that was to ask the question: Going forward, which mistake do we most want to avoid? Given the fragility and the psychology of the market, I think we most want to ... | 158 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Parry. | 4 |
fomc | 2,001 | I support your recommendation. | 5 |
fomc | 2,001 | Governor Gramlich. | 4 |
fomc | 2,001 | I support it. | 4 |
fomc | 2,001 | President Minehan. | 4 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.