kakeith406/op-fed huggingface dataset:
Prior discussion:
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: Somebody mentioned to me that Bankers Trust had an August balance sheet for LTCM. Is that true? 
speaker: VICE CHAIRMAN MCDONOUGH.
text: Yes, but the balance sheet is a relatively small piece of the whole action because so much of the latter is off-balance-sheet. 
speaker: MR. FISHER.
text: I don't think they had an August balance sheet on September 1. 
speaker: VICE CHAIRMAN MCDONOUGH.
text: They may have one now. 

MR. FISHER. "I don't think anyone had seen one before the weekend of September 19 and 20."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. GRAMLICH.
text: I think I support Peter Fisher and Bill McDonough on that. I polled the chairman on this, but I couldn't quite tell where he was coming out. [Laughter] 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: If you can figure out where I stand, let me know! [Laughter] 

MR. GRAMLICH. "Let me also say something that I have said before on other aspects of what we do."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. STOCKTON.
text: The assumptions we have made on both the import price side and on the oil price are critical factors in explaining the upturn we have forecast in inflation. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: There is a wage/price interaction, which means that the change in the crude oil price gives us a multiplier in the inflation rate. Are you counting that in the 0.2 and 0.3 or are you doing just a direct accounting translation into the product prices in the CPI? 
speaker: MR. STOCKTON.
text: We are doing the full accounting. On PCE price inflation, flat oil prices and, let's say, 1 percent slower non-oil import price inflation would take about 0.2 off the forecast we are showing in 1999 and 0.4 off in 2000, including all of the feedback effects. 

CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN. "It is important for us to recognize that so we can monitor this and make certain we make some good judgments about where we are."

Full utterance: That is what I am getting at. It is a full simulation effect. I would presume that if the price of crude oil went down, it would have even more of an effect. So, in a sense a not insignificant part of the forecast is dependent on an endeavor to make judgments about a very difficult issue. We do the best we can, but it is important to realize that we could be wrong on either side of that. We could very readily get an increase in West Texas Intermediate to $15 a barrel, and that would make a difference; or it could go down to $9 a barrel and that would throw the whole forecast off. It is important for us to recognize that so we can monitor this and make certain we make some good judgments about where we are. President Parry.

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. KOHN.
text: If you look back at our forecasting in 1990 and 1991, that development caught us somewhat by surprise. But toward the end of 1991 and in 1992 we were doing a better job of forecasting. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: You were putting in add factors. 
speaker: MR. KOHN.
text: Yes, because we knew that the world had changed, so the old equations weren't working. Exactly. 

CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN. "Now, what this suggests to me is that money is hiding itself very well."

Full utterance: I must say that I have not changed my view that inflation is fundamentally a monetary phenomenon. But I am becoming far more skeptical that we can define a proxy that actually captures what money is, either in terms of transaction balances or those elements in the economic decisionmaking process which represent money. We are struggling here. I think we have to be careful not to assume by definition that M1, M2, or M3 or anything is money. They are all proxies for the underlying conceptual variable that we all employ in our generic evaluation of the impact of money on the economy. Now, what this suggests to me is that money is hiding itself very well. Don, do you think we ought to discuss the Humphrey-Hawkins issue before we go into this or after?

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: yes
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. KOHN.
text: Production can be higher by a couple of percentage points than at the higher NAIRU, and a lower interest rate is needed to stimulate the demand to use the extra production that is now available at the lower NAIRU. 
speaker: MR. PRELL.
text: Don, I might suggest that another way to think of this is as follows: If the NAIRU is really more like 41/2 percent, we might be around the NAIRU now and looking at the prospect of a steady inflation path, which is the sign that we are essentially around the natural rate of interest. That's different from what is in our forecast, which suggests that we are headed toward an acceleration of prices at the prevailing level of interest rates. I think that's a very simple way to look at that. 
speaker: MR. PARRY.
text: I see. 

MR. KOHN. "As for the level of the natural rate, it is higher than it has been in some of the past forecasts, although as I noted it drifts down over time as the wealth-to-income ratio drifts down."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: VICE CHAIRMAN MCDONOUGH.
text: Mr. Chairman, I not only support but applaud your recommendation. I think an announcement of a tightening in policy at the present time would make us seem oblivious of what is going on in the world. But perhaps even more seriously, with a complete absence of inflation, it would put the Committee on record as being opposed to economic growth. Inevitably that is how a tightening move would be perceived, and I don't think that would be an appropriate message for us to send. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: President Poole. 

MR. POOLE. "As I translate that into price indexes, it gives me a CPI somewhere in the area of 1 or 11/2 percent, given the ambiguity of the reading that we are getting out of the chained price index."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MS. MINEHAN.
text: And I have heard stories from employees at breakfast about staff running pell-mell to the elevators with cartloads full of checks to try to make the courier times because processing has been so much heavier than usual. I don't think this has anything to do with the economy; it has to do with banking reorganization in our District. Our own productivity undoubtedly looks really great right now, but we would not be able to continue to move this volume of checks out the door for very long. Reconcilement issues and other kinds of issues would come back to bite us if we did that for very long. I am just wondering how you tell the difference. 

MR. PRELL. "It is obviously very difficult and it is a judgment call."

Full utterance: It is obviously very difficult and it is a judgment call. But I think the kind of situation you are describing, though complicated, is one reason to anticipate that at least some companies will hire additional workers. You say companies are working beyond sustainable levels of labor utilization, but you also say they are absolutely determined not to add workers. In other cases, I think people are working very hard, and firms would like to add workers but are finding it difficult to do so in a very tight labor market. For the latter group, we would anticipate that, even if business begins to flatten out, some of these firms will follow through on their hiring plans to reach a more comfortable position.

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. KOHN.
text: So I think we are moving as quickly as the data will allow toward our best assessment of what those supply side effects are. But you are right; that assessment is embodied in these simulations. I tried to emphasize that the results, particularly the extent of the firming, are crucially dependent on those assessments and that there is a lot of uncertainty about them. The Committee may want to think carefully about how much weight it puts on them. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: In the simulations, what are you doing to the statistical discrepancy? 

MR. KOHN. "That's an income side thing and the simulations, I believe, are basically done on the product side."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. MOSKOW.
text: And the outlook for the core CPI includes a comparable degree of acceleration. Going forward, it is clear to me that without significant action by this Committee, growth in aggregate demand will continue to outstrip growth in aggregate supply and inflation will deteriorate. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: Thank you. Let's take a break for coffee at this stage, but let's keep it relatively short. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: President Stern. 

MR. STERN. "In my view, what might be the decisive factor here is financial conditions and how accommodative or restrictive they turn out to be."

Full utterance: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Ninth District's economy remains healthy. Construction activity is strong as is consumer spending. We have a couple of auto dealers on our two boards of directors and we asked them whether energy prices were affecting auto sales. Their answer was not so far as they could tell; auto sales continue to be robust. Labor markets, of course, remain very tight. And there is a bit of an unusual inventory problem developing; by that I mean that the problem is getting the inventory from the back room or the basement to the shelves. In some retail stores, the shelves are only partially stocked, and retailers tell us they just can't hire the staff to keep up with shelf stocking. A couple of our directors have reported that they see signs that inflation is stirring. These are people who sit on a variety of corporate boards, and they are bringing to us reports that input prices are going up and also that to some extent those companies are starting to implement price increases on their own that so far are sticking. As far as the national economy is concerned, I really don't think there is very much new. I continue to believe that the expansion of aggregate demand is secure and that, therefore, the outlook for real growth is positive. I continue to be relatively optimistic about future productivity gains, but I don't have a conviction about whether that will lead to domestic aggregate supply keeping pace with aggregate demand or not. In my view, what might be the decisive factor here is financial conditions and how accommodative or restrictive they turn out to be. We did ask several of our directors to check with their sources to see whether the higher interest rates that have appeared in the marketplace over the past year or so have had any effect on spending or on future investment plans or other such decisions. And in general the answers we got back were "no, not to this point."

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: yes
Prior discussion:
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: It is really impressive at this late stage in the business cycle--more than we may have even remotely imagined. President Broaddus. 
speaker: MR. BROADDUS.
text: Dave, in light of this discussion, it might be helpful if you could just refresh our memories about your estimate of the NAIRU as it is now and the kind of confidence interval you have around it. I presume there's an upside as well as a downside risk to it, despite the recent experience. It might be helpful to have that benchmark. 

MR. STOCKTON. "We do see upside and downside risks to that estimate."

Full utterance: Our current point estimate is about 5-1/4 percent. As I indicated earlier, that is down from the 5 3/4 percent to 6 percent range we had before. We do see upside and downside risks to that estimate. In the paper by Flint Brayton and David Reifschneider circulated to the Committee through Don Kohn a few weeks ago, I think they reported a reestimate of their wage and price equations. Their work suggests a NAIRU of 5-3/4 percent even with the current set of data they've been looking at. They provided in the paper a variety of reasons for why we might have experienced this particular combination of low unemployment and low inflation. Now, we have other judgmental models that produce lower NAIRUs. And we feel relatively comfortable with a number of the stories that, as I indicated earlier, probably have helped to lower the natural rate. But the risks are not one-sided either.

Opinion: yes
Prior discussion:
speaker: MS. MINEHAN.
text: And how timely this is done doesn't enter into the equation? We can't say that we will release the information but only at a point in time when it would tend not to be detrimental to our immediate operations? 
speaker: MR. MATTINGLY.
text: Well, I don't see how we could. We would have to show that to release it before the minutes are released is going to cause the government financial harm. 
speaker: MS. MINEHAN.
text: Financial harm is the issue? 

MR. MATTINGLY. "Whether that was right or wrong, that's what we argued, and the Court agreed to it."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. FERGUSON.
text: The news articles were as long and as abundant as they are now. So it has played both ways. There was certainly a desire to find out what was going on, and in a sense that was the only signal that the Federal Reserve gave. So the situation was different but not totally different from today. President Parry, you're the next one on my list. 

MR. PARRY. "But I am uncomfortable about releasing the vote tally, including the name of a dissenter, by itself."

Full utterance: Well, I wish we had never started down this road as well. But I am uncomfortable about releasing the vote tally, including the name of a dissenter, by itself. The important information is really not found in the numerical tally but in the direction and the rationale for any dissents. Simply reporting the existence of a dissent after an FOMC meeting without revealing its motivation could add noise to markets unless it is clarified. Even if dissenters are identified, it seems untenable that further questions about the direction and rationale of their dissenting vote could be left unanswered until the release of the minutes, especially given the typical six-week lag in their release. In the interim, the pressure for disclosure would be intense, and the possibility of erroneous speculation would be counterproductive. I also would like to know a bit more about the practices of other central banks. For example, the Bank of England doesn't release the vote tally along with the press release announcing its decision. That is made public only with the release of the minutes, which of course occurs two weeks later.

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. BROADDUS.
text: But it would be precisely in that kind of environment where significant danger would arise if we were reluctant to downgrade problem banks. With particular reference to the proposal about a contingency ACF for emergency situations, at this point I don't see any great advantage in that if I understand it correctly. We have this new Lombard facility coming in with a provision that would allow the Reserve Banks to drop the discount rate to the funds rate in an emergency situation. So I guess I don't see what this facility would add to what we would have in place once the new Lombard facility is introduced. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: President Santomero. 

MR. SANTOMERO. "So, my preference would be for the staff to continue with the Ginnie Maes, which are a logical extension of our current practices, and to do a little more homework on the ACF."

Full utterance: I'm close to where President Hoenig is. The Ginnie Maes make sense to me, and I think we should continue to pursue how that might happen. And I believe it would be useful to look at the ACF alternative in direct comparison with Ginnie Maes to see why we would need the ACF if we had Ginnie Maes. On the question of whether or not we need a CACF as a contingency arrangement I think we should turn to Governor Ferguson and say, "Do we have enough contingency arrangements?" If his crisis management group wants to take the CACF off the table because it's no longer perceived as necessary, that's fine. We should remember that, with the Treasury's auctioning of TT&L balances, we actually have had a lot more experience over the last fifteen months than we had before about how such a system would work. In many respects the ACF could be viewed as that kind of structure. So, my preference would be for the staff to continue with the Ginnie Maes, which are a logical extension of our current practices, and to do a little more homework on the ACF. I'd have the staff come back to the Committee and say, "Here are the costs and benefits of each of these, how do you wish to proceed?" And in that sense my view comes closer to President Parry's in terms of looking at both of them for a while and then figuring out where we want to end up.

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. STOCKTON.
text: They showed more of that pickup in trend productivity than ultimately turned out to be the case. So I think we need to be careful about getting head-faked by the last year's data, given the rather extraordinary circumstances of the period. But in terms of being able to model underlying technical progress or organizational efficiencies--the kinds of things that actually go into productivity--we just don't have a very good handle on how to measure them. 
speaker: MR. BROADDUS.
text: Thank you. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: President Parry. 

MR. PARRY. "I was struck by how large that probability is."

Full utterance: David, my question is related somewhat to the interchange you had with Michael Moskow about deflation. I had a chance to look at the Board staff's domestic nonfinancial briefing and the exercise of estimating the probability of attaining deflation, as you define it, over a four-quarter period. I was struck by how large that probability is. I wondered what level of concern you had about that probability; 28 percent is not a small number. We had done a similar exercise for a previous meeting, but we didn't have quite the same definition. I actually like your definition better because I think it is more realistic in terms of assuming a 1/2 percentage point error in the core PCE measure of inflation. How did the probability numbers strike you when you got those results?

Opinion: yes
Prior discussion:
speaker: VICE CHAIRMAN MCDONOUGH.
text: [Laughter] 
speaker: MR. KOHN.
text: Conflict of interest! 
speaker: VICE CHAIRMAN MCDONOUGH.
text: Maybe for the record somebody else should second the motion. SEVERAL. I'll second. 

CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN. "I appreciate the revision."

Full utterance: I appreciate the revision. Approved without objection. I would assume and hope that there is no objection to the incumbent Manager of the System Open Market Account, Dino Kos, continuing in that position. Without objection. Thank you very much. Mr. Kos, would you quickly review your memorandum on the Authorization for Domestic Open Market Operations, the Authorization for Foreign Currency Operations, the Foreign Currency Directive, and the Procedural Instructions with Respect to Foreign Currency Operations?

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. SACK.
text: So it reduces the degree of inertia in these rules, but there's still a significant amount of gradualism. 
speaker: MR. GRAMLICH.
text: You can reduce the degree of inertia by attributing some of that explanatory power to some other error out there that happens to have serial correlation, right? 
speaker: MR. SACK.
text: Right. 
speaker: MR. GRAMLICH.
text: So part of the problem is that what appears to be inertia actually is not. We've just responded consistently to something that's the same for a period of time. 

MR. TETLOW. "There again, it doesn't mean that Glenn is wrong, but it does mean that there is friction between these two views, and it can't be settled at this table."

Full utterance: Well, perhaps. I'd point to the part of exhibits 2 and 3 where we use the FRB/US model. Now, that is a large model with lots of persistence in it; a large number of lagged states and lagged errors are at work there. Let's say you ask what the optimal parameterization of this simple policy rule would be. You ask it to pick up the very thing that I believe Glenn is describing. What it tells you is that, unless there is a high degree forward-looking expectations, the optimal policy doesn't want that lag. It doesn't want that lag to proxy for the same kind of things that Glenn argues empirically it is proxying for. Does that mean Glenn is wrong? Not necessarily. It could mean that the model is wrong. But it isn't clear that what Glenn is referring to is not being adequately captured in what we're describing in exhibits 2 and 3. The same thing is true, I might add, about the term structure evidence. For this term structure evidence to explain what Glenn wants it to explain, he has to assume rational expectations. That's a presumption in his analysis. But as you saw in exhibit 3, if there are rational expectations, the optimal strategy calls for a lot of persistence in the fed funds rate. So one can interpret Glenn's evidence as suggesting that rational expectations are not there, in which case they shouldn't have produced inertia in the first place. There again, it doesn't mean that Glenn is wrong, but it does mean that there is friction between these two views, and it can't be settled at this table.

Opinion: yes
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. STRUCKMEYER.
text: So our attempt here has been to be cautious in saying how much is permanent. The 1.5 percent multifactor productivity growth is still quite strong. It's just not as strong as what we saw last year. In part we think there were a lot of adjustments going on--some related to the aftermath of September 11 that were unique to 2002 and others that are more likely to be one-time or occasional events than to be repeated consistently over our forecast period. That's the thought process that we've gone through. 

MR. FERGUSON. "I'm rather surprised, Sandy, that in response to Governor Bernanke's important question you didn't talk a little about developments in the world of semiconductors."

Full utterance: Could I make a two-handed intervention here? I'm rather surprised, Sandy, that in response to Governor Bernanke's important question you didn't talk a little about developments in the world of semiconductors. If one listens to folks in that industry, they cite a number of, I think, reasonably credible but yet-to-be-proven stories about their ability to build larger and larger semiconductors and to etch more capabilities into these semiconductors. They go on to talk about nanotechnology and other things. These stories are not dramatically different from the kinds of stories they were starting to tell in 1995 and 1996 that proved to be true. So while I think the question is a quite legitimate one and, as you say, very important, there are some indications out there about the basic building blocks of this IT boom that suggest that there still is some room--

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: no