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fomc | 2,003 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm glad that you called on me now because, the longer this meeting goes, the more balls there are up in the air and we're going to have an unstable equilibrium! First off, on the process I'm a status quo man. I think the system we have is pretty good. We can fix it up, which I guess puts me so... | 564 |
fomc | 2,003 | Governor Olson. | 3 |
fomc | 2,003 | Put me in the category also of the members who don't think we need to make a major change. Like a lot of other people, I've spent a good deal of time thinking about what we might have done differently in our past communication. As I've thought about our recent communication, it seemed to me that over the March/May/June... | 389 |
fomc | 2,003 | Governor Kohn. | 4 |
fomc | 2,003 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with President Hoenig and President Poole as well that it's very difficult for us to talk about the future. But actually I'm fairly comfortable with where we've gotten. In terms of the balance of risks sentence, in my view it has been useful to get to the three-part assessment. I think ... | 666 |
fomc | 2,003 | You know, I've always thought that sustaining meant self-sustaining--in other words, a situation in which the gears are working in a perpetual motion. That's closer to the "imbalances" interpretation, I would suspect. But I never thought of it in terms of the two alternatives that you gentlemen mentioned. I always thou... | 72 |
fomc | 2,003 | That proves my point about needing to clarify it! | 10 |
fomc | 2,003 | I'm a little puzzled by it. | 7 |
fomc | 2,003 | It's not only the market that doesn't know what we mean! [Laughter] | 16 |
fomc | 2,003 | The English language is wonderfully elastic. President Poole. | 11 |
fomc | 2,003 | A point that I don't think has come up yet is the fact that we're talking to a number of different audiences. With regard to our political accountability--talking to the Congress and the general public--I think we do just fine, and I believe the current publication schedule for the minutes fully serves that audience. I... | 298 |
fomc | 2,003 | That's a very interesting point. | 6 |
fomc | 2,003 | I would also emphasize that we've used the words "formulaic" and "boilerplate" in this discussion. Those words have negative connotations, obviously. What we're talking about is standard language with a standard meaning. So I want to be sure that we don't convey any of the negative connotations. I think that's quite im... | 223 |
fomc | 2,003 | Governor Bies. | 4 |
fomc | 2,003 | Let me make just a couple of comments. Some of these points have been covered, but I want to highlight the ones that hit me rather hard as I thought about them. First, when I think about what has happened with regard to our communications over the last couple of months, I think part of the problem was that we were in u... | 359 |
fomc | 2,003 | And the speeches are scheduled three months in advance. | 10 |
fomc | 2,003 | So the market's interpretation is based on words from a selected number of those around the table who happen to have speaking engagements and talk about the economic situation. To me the minutes give a better representation of the diversity of views as well as the consensus and lay out why those who had different views... | 177 |
fomc | 2,003 | That sounds like a forecast to me. | 8 |
fomc | 2,003 | Well, it's what we see today. It reflects how we got to our conclusion regarding policy. I'd prefer that, rather than to say that the risks are up or the risks are down--which I think can be read in many different ways depending on where the economy happens to be. It's the first difference both in inflation and growth ... | 167 |
fomc | 2,003 | Let me get a clarification. If in clarifying the language we use straight declarative sentences, I think we'd be making statements as to what we think is going to happen and not what we see as a risk. | 43 |
fomc | 2,003 | Right. | 2 |
fomc | 2,003 | My impression is, and I may be mistaken on this, that the very act of writing declarative sentences forces you to take a position of stipulating something quite specific. Falling back to a probabilistic Bayesian type of language seems to be fuzzying up the statements, but that's exactly what we're trying to do to creat... | 101 |
fomc | 2,003 | Well, it's going to be very difficult. But the lesson I took from the last few months is that using the standard risk-assessment language in times like this, when we're going through a turn in the direction of the economy, sends confusing signals. | 50 |
fomc | 2,003 | Let me make a request. Take the last statement and the one we're going to use tomorrow and rewrite them. Take a look at it because I'm curious about how you would do it. | 37 |
fomc | 2,003 | Well, that's why I agreed with the suggestion that was made earlier about trying to test any proposed language under different circumstances. | 24 |
fomc | 2,003 | That's exactly the reason that I ask. | 8 |
fomc | 2,003 | Yes, I think we have to do that. | 10 |
fomc | 2,003 | Take a shot at it and see what you come up with. | 13 |
fomc | 2,003 | Okay. Those are the main comments I had. | 10 |
fomc | 2,003 | President McTeer. | 5 |
fomc | 2,003 | Mr. Chairman, I've always been confused by Bayesian things because it seems as if people still try to figure out the probability of something happening after it has already happened, which I have some trouble with! [Laughter] Since many of you probably would like to see the Dallas Cowboys get beaten up tonight, I'll be... | 332 |
fomc | 2,003 | President Santomero. | 5 |
fomc | 2,003 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was about to offer a comment several hours ago before Mr. Parry spoke, but I'm rather glad that I didn't because at that point I would have said that Vincent had laid out an impossible task for us. As far as I could tell, he was asking us to figure out what we should communicate, how we shoul... | 698 |
fomc | 2,003 | Governor Bernanke. | 4 |
fomc | 2,003 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to support the Washington consensus, option number 4. Broadly speaking, I think the form of the statement is rather good. In particular I think the breaking up of the output and inflation risks was a very useful step, although we can do some fine-tuning there. I agree that we should do... | 483 |
fomc | 2,003 | President Pianalto. | 4 |
fomc | 2,003 | Thank you, Mr. Chairman. After the last two meetings and even after reading the transcripts of the last two meetings, when we spent a lot of time talking about the need to improve our communications, I expected to be supporting major changes in the way we communicate. But after getting the material from Vincent and als... | 379 |
fomc | 2,003 | Well, thank you very much. We've gone around the table, and I must say to you that my impression was that more substantive issues were put on the table than I had expected and, indeed, potentially more conclusions. I think it's fairly evident that there are generally two schools that are emerging. One is the de minimis... | 833 |
fomc | 2,003 | Good morning, everyone. I'd like to point out before we get started that today is the last FOMC meeting for Gary Gillum, who as you may know has been a member of the Secretariat for the past fifteen years and is completing forty years of service in government, twenty-three of them at the Board. I was informed very late... | 260 |
fomc | 2,003 | Mr. Chairman, with regard to the first sentence of the proposed addition, it seems to me that in the past we've referred to the objectives of fostering economic growth and price stability as long term. So it would make some sense to stay with language that refers to our objectives as being long term. | 59 |
fomc | 2,003 | I know our objectives are for sustainable long-term economic growth and price stability, but is either objective itself only long term? I think each goal is ongoing. "Long term" may mean we're not always focused on our objectives but only in the longer term. Is that what you mean? | 57 |
fomc | 2,003 | No. I don't think that's what we meant in the past when we've used that language. I think we knew that we couldn't achieve our objectives in every instance, but they were set out as long-term objectives. | 42 |
fomc | 2,003 | Well, maybe I'm splitting hairs. But an objective is by its nature something that one seeks. We're always seeking long-term sustainable growth. | 27 |
fomc | 2,003 | Mr. Chairman, "long-term" could be moved to the end of the sentence. | 18 |
fomc | 2,003 | That's what I'm trying to get at. I'm just being a nitpicker. | 15 |
fomc | 2,003 | No, that's fine. | 5 |
fomc | 2,003 | There's language in the Bluebook on page 10 that we've used for a long time. | 18 |
fomc | 2,003 | Well, it could be wrong! [Laughter] | 11 |
fomc | 2,003 | There's something to be said for consistency. | 8 |
fomc | 2,003 | But is it a virtue to be consistently wrong? | 10 |
fomc | 2,003 | The language in the Bluebook on page 10 under "directive wording" is actually broken into two parts. The second sentence starts "To further its long-run objectives," which refers to the objectives specified in the first sentence. | 45 |
fomc | 2,003 | Well, I'm going to appoint a committee to relook at those two sentences! [Laughter] Does anyone disagree with what I just said? | 29 |
fomc | 2,003 | Well, are you proposing to put economic growth and price stability in the long run at the end of the sentence or are you proposing not to have it at all? | 33 |
fomc | 2,003 | I think our ongoing, unchangeable objective is to seek long-term stability, defined in terms of prices and other things. | 25 |
fomc | 2,003 | Right, so I think what you're proposing is "a fostering of sustainable economic growth and price stability in the long run," which as President Poole points out is not the language we've used up until now. | 41 |
fomc | 2,003 | It's not standard. I know exactly what it is that we want to do. I'm not so sure what the appropriate English terminology is. | 27 |
fomc | 2,003 | Is "fostering" used in the sense that we are trying to create a movement toward an objective, such as in the case of foster parents? | 31 |
fomc | 2,003 | Yes. The substantive point is that an objective is an absolute and invariant to the issue of time. And that objective is to seek sustainable economic growth over the long run. Now, I don't know what the appropriate wording-- | 44 |
fomc | 2,003 | Mr. Chairman? | 4 |
fomc | 2,003 | Yes. | 2 |
fomc | 2,003 | I could complicate things further by reading the Federal Reserve Act. [Laughter] That says that we should keep long-run growth of monetary and credit aggregates commensurate with the economy's long-run potential to increase production so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and mode... | 85 |
fomc | 2,003 | No, I admit that there is a problem in the wording of the Federal Reserve Act as well. | 20 |
fomc | 2,003 | Mr. Chairman, I would suggest, given this discussion, that we not change the wording. | 19 |
fomc | 2,003 | I agree. | 3 |
fomc | 2,003 | I think for the moment the answer is that we should review it but not change it here. It doesn't add to anything except the level of confusion. Is that acceptable? President Minehan. | 38 |
fomc | 2,003 | I actually didn't raise my hand, and I'm certainly not going to now! [Laughter] But I think this is proof positive that editing by nineteen people is really too hard to do. So I'm happy with this, Mr. Chairman. | 48 |
fomc | 2,003 | May I raise my hand in lieu of President Minehan? | 12 |
fomc | 2,003 | Well, what do you want to do by raising your hand? | 13 |
fomc | 2,003 | I know I'm not being very helpful--and I agree that we can't edit as a group--but I have a slight concern with the last sentence because of the words "members recognize that going forward they should consider some changes." I'd like to propose that we say that the Committee "may well consider some changes." If we tell ... | 120 |
fomc | 2,003 | There's also another consideration. Suppose we conclude that we don't think any changes are necessary? | 17 |
fomc | 2,003 | Right. So I would change that to "may well consider" because we may well do that. We're a lively, vibrant group. | 27 |
fomc | 2,003 | Does anybody object to that? | 6 |
fomc | 2,003 | Just on that point, Mr. Chairman. Another way of phrasing that sentence would be not to commit to anything but to say that on an ongoing basis we would consider changes. That way it doesn't appear as if there's one distinct time when we're going to be recommending some changes. | 56 |
fomc | 2,003 | Michelle has given me some wording here that may help. It reads: "Nonetheless, members recognize that going forward they could consider changes that might improve the Committee's communication of its assessment of the economic situation." It's the same sort of concept. I don't have a strong view about the precise wordi... | 68 |
fomc | 2,003 | Does that seem adequate to you? | 7 |
fomc | 2,003 | Say it again. | 4 |
fomc | 2,003 | Michelle, would you read it? | 7 |
fomc | 2,003 | Okay. "Nonetheless, members recognize that going forward they could consider changes that might improve the Committee's communication of its assessment of the economic situation." | 29 |
fomc | 2,003 | I think "may" would be better. | 9 |
fomc | 2,003 | "May"? | 3 |
fomc | 2,003 | Yes, I think "may" is a little better. | 12 |
fomc | 2,003 | But I rather like President Moskow's approach that we should be reassessing our communication policy as part of our normal procedures. That's what I read in his suggested wording. We talked about a wide range of possibilities last night, and we may not come out with all the changes at once. I like that approach. | 63 |
fomc | 2,003 | I agree with that. | 5 |
fomc | 2,003 | Why don't we say "may from time to time consider," which conveys that point? | 17 |
fomc | 2,003 | Yes. SEVERAL. That would be good. | 11 |
fomc | 2,003 | So it's Michelle's sentence with "may from time to time consider changes," etc. | 17 |
fomc | 2,003 | President Poole. | 4 |
fomc | 2,003 | On this same point, I'd like to throw out an option to consider, though I'm not sure that I'm even in favor of it. I think it's going to become generally known that we're going to continue our discussion of communication issues in January. What I worry about is that this paragraph coming out in the minutes released on ... | 93 |
fomc | 2,003 | That's what keeps Michelle employed! | 6 |
fomc | 2,003 | I understand that. The question I'd raise is whether we couldn't diffuse some of the sense of immediacy--the expectation that we might make some changes at the next meeting or some time relatively soon--by simply saying that the Committee agreed to continue this discussion at its January meeting. That would take the im... | 67 |
fomc | 2,003 | Well, that may restrict us. We may actually want to make changes before January, so I'm not sure your proposal is a good idea. Look, press questions do not strike me as an insurmountable barrier for us to move forward in what we're trying to say on this issue. If there were no questions, that would mean people were not... | 169 |
fomc | 2,003 | Yes. Could you reread it with Roger's final edits? | 13 |
fomc | 2,003 | Why don't we just read the final sentence. | 9 |
fomc | 2,003 | "Nonetheless, members recognize that going forward they may from time to time consider changes that might improve the Committee's communication of its assessment of the economic situation." | 31 |
fomc | 2,003 | There's a general nodding of heads. | 8 |
fomc | 2,003 | Yes. | 2 |
fomc | 2,003 | That's a good solution. | 5 |
fomc | 2,003 | Okay, why don't we wrap it up? Would somebody, therefore, like to move approval of the minutes? | 22 |
fomc | 2,003 | I'll move approval of the minutes. | 7 |
fomc | 2,003 | Without objection. Dino, you're on. | 8 |
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