kakeith406/op-fed huggingface dataset:
Prior discussion:
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: I would not give all that much weight to the degree of support we're going to get if this is dragged out indefinitely and we have to go through this process once again. Where that leaves me in terms of "B" and "C"--I don't think anybody mentioned "A"--is that at this particular juncture I find the focus a little long, frankly, for me to come to any great conviction between "B" and "C." I share much of Governor Rice's feelings about those alternatives. I do attach some significance to the fact that if we took "B" literally, while the numbers as presented on page 6 of the Bluebook look low, [they imply] running above our annual targets in the way we calculate those targets. If we were going to be at the midpoint of the annual target, it would require a considerable decline in the second half of the year from the 5-1/4 percent quarterly growth pattern implied by "B;" and even "C" is above the midpoint of the annual target for M-1A. You are shaking your head "no." 
speaker: MS. TEETERS.
text: "C" would mean 4-1/4 percent per quarter for the rest of the year. 

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. ""C" is 5 percent for the first two quarters, as I have calculated it, and the midpoint [of our annual target] is 4-3/4 percent."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. GALLIN.
text: So, some of my work is trying to get at just these types of criticisms. But from the underlying data, I have been able to look at rent appreciation for different segments of the rental market, trying to see--with home ownership rates going up--where the homeowner market is stealing, so to speak, from the rental market and how big the biases are. And it does look as if the higher end of the rental market has been showing somewhat smaller rent increases over time, suggesting that that's where it's coming from, but not dramatically. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: That raises an important point because, as we know, wages of nonsupervisory workers, which are essentially payroll data, are going up 3 percent, whereas implicitly that of supervisory workers is going up double or three times that. That's changing; it has accelerated in the most recent period. 

MR. GALLIN. "Let me note just one last thing."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. FORRESTAL.
text: I will throw on the table the possibility that if we really do not believe that the aggregates are going to return to providing us with some nexus to the real economy, the time might be coming if it is not here already to think about a change in the statute. Not only is this setting of the ranges a distraction for the Congress in some sense, but it is occupying a lot of this Committee's time for no good reasons except, as you said, Mr. Chairman, that the law is there. If we remove the statutory provision, the focus of Committee discussions can be better directed to more important issues. I realize that there are risks in going forward with that kind of legislative request, but I think it is something that we ought to think about. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: Governor Phillips. 

MS. PHILLIPS. "I find myself quite frustrated with this discussion."

Full utterance: I favor alternative II for 1995 and alternative I for 1996. I find myself quite frustrated with this discussion. I think part of it has to do with our not really knowing whether the ranges are something we should be shooting for--whether they are long-term objectives, or whether they are in effect short-term monitoring ranges to be explained. So, I support the notion of having a more extended discussion of what our goals should be in terms of thinking about restructuring the Humphrey-Hawkins statute and the kinds of things we monitor. I don't think this is the time to do it, because I am not sure we know enough now about what range we should monitor, whether it should be M2 or M3 or something else. At this point, I certainly agree with the notion that if we change the M2 range now, we are going to draw more attention to it. But at some point I think we do need to address the kinds of issues that Al Broaddus has raised and decide whether or not we are going to support legislative changes that would get us off the horns of this dilemma.

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: yes
Prior discussion:
speaker: CHAIRMAN MILLER.
text: Thank you, Peter. Any questions? Phil. 
speaker: MR. JACKSON.
text: How does the market currently view the disparity between the level of the federal funds rate and the 90-day bill rate? What is the market conversation about that disparity in rates? 

MR. STERNLIGHT. "There are those reasons for their being sold--foreign accounts, captive-type customers, and others who [unintelligible]."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: VICE CHAIRMAN SOLOMON.
text: To me it's really important that we not repeat what we did last year. That's the one time I dissented and I'd have to dissent again, I think, if the fed funds floor were put so as to permit such a sharp drop in the funds rate over a short period of time. 
speaker: MS. TEETERS.
text: Don't forget that last year the economy went down at a real rate of 9-1/2 percent in the second quarter. No wonder the rates dropped so fast. We're going to have a decline here of about half that. 

VICE CHAIRMAN SOLOMON. "And I think that is much more meaningful to an economic recovery."

Full utterance: The reaction to that would be very perverse in the bond market. I'm convinced of it. And I think that is much more meaningful to an economic recovery.

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: yes
Stance toward easing (NLI): ambiguous
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. SYRON.
text: But I just can't come to a different conclusion because regardless of what we do in policy--and we're constrained with the dollar on one side of the prospective policy--it would take an awful big move to divert some of the enormous increase in conservatism and risk premiums by many lending institutions, and not just commercial banks, given the problems that they have. There are several actions that we could take in that area, though as I say they're not directly germane to today's [discussion] on what has to be done. But I think we really have to give an awful lot of thought to that as being part of how we proceed--that leaning against the wind may apply to supervisory policy in many cases just as well as monetary policy. I hope that in these observations I'm overly influenced by parochialism, but that may not be the case. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: President Boykin. 

MR. BOYKIN. "We had a joint meeting last week of all four of our boards of directors and the comments made at that meeting certainly confirmed what our statistics are saying."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MS. JOHNSON.
text: Well, the model that is embedded in these two charts was put together by the International Finance Division two years ago. And it came to somewhat less fearsome conclusions because the dollar is two years' worth of appreciation lower now and we have not had two years of full-blown U.S. deficits piling up and so forth. We said the same thing then, and in fact the world went completely the opposite way. Even though we said then that the current account would begin to get alarming and the projections were inevitable, the numbers have gone in the other direction for two years. So there is no sense in which I mean this chart to be telling you what is going to happen starting tomorrow. 

MR. STERN. "That's fine."

Full utterance: No, I understand that. That's fine.

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. GRAMLEY.
text: And I divided that by the GNP and got 7-1/2 percent. I looked at my own tables here, which I happen to have with me, to compare that 7-1/2 percent. And when I went back, I thought: Well, in 1975 we had 6.9 percent. And then I went all the way back and had to go back to 1961 to find any comparable ratio. 
speaker: MR. BALLES.
text: You know, 1976 was 11 percent. 

MR. AXILROD. "We didn't think that there was room for any more private credit within the monetary targets and given the government's [needs]."

Full utterance: Mr. Chairman, we don't feel extremely confident about all of these numbers--and Mr. Prell may be able to make some comments on how he got to here a little more elaborately--but if we attempted to have a lot more private credit, we believe that interest rates would be a lot higher in that process and we wouldn't get the GNP because the rise in interest rates would begin to cut it back. So, this is where we came out with a consistent set of relationships. We didn't think that there was room for any more private credit within the monetary targets and given the government's [needs].

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: yes
Prior discussion:
speaker: MS. YELLEN.
text: I agree with Governor Lindsey. I think this is a discussion that we definitely need to have to clarify what we mean by price stability and what strategy we have in mind to get there. I am also concerned, especially given my interest in an opportunistic strategy, that it would be awfully hard to fill in the boxes relating to what I would expect in 1998. If we extended the horizon out a little longer to, say, the year 2000, I would find it easier to fill in the boxes and participate in our discussion. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: Governor Kelley. 

MR. KELLEY. "One of the pleasures of my job is that I get to discuss goals with all 12 Reserve Banks."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. BOYKIN.
text: If the drop-off does materialize, that will likely bring inflation pressures back on the domestic side. Given capacity utilization and the other things that we normally look at, it just seems to me that pressures are going to start building as we get into 1985. Therefore, I'm not as optimistic on inflation as the staff. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: By a considerable margin. Governor Wallich. 

MR. WALLICH. "My numbers are on the high side of the forecasts, but not extraordinarily so."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. KOHN.
text: I don't think there's an easy answer to your question, Governor Angell. Ultimately, you would have to crank the whole thing through a big model of interest rates and money demand and all that sort of thing. The P* model tends to cut through it a bit. I do think that some attention to these money growth rates when they get very high or very low provides a sense of discipline on the central bank to make sure it's not going too far off the track one way or another. And that's essentially what P* attempts to do. 

MR. ANGELL. "Well, take table 1 of Mike's December 14th"


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. STERN.
text: Others may disagree, I realize, but that's where I came out. However, I would have no trouble--as you know, Roger--going with gradual evolution. Indeed, if you look at the criteria on page 5 in Vincent's memo, I think that approach may well do a better job on items 2, 3, and 4. So I have no problem with that approach and would be very comfortable with it. 
speaker: MR. FERGUSON.
text: I have Governor Gramlich next. 

MR. GRAMLICH. "So I would be for gradual evolution."

Full utterance: I began the exercise thinking that we could come up with a formulaic statement that would work most of the time. In working through it--I was also part of the working group--I now think we can't. I'm pretty much in sympathy with the Chairman in believing that we will face situations where we may think the differences are subtle and not that great but in fact they are. In going through the stress-test exercise, as was done in the memo, I found that nothing here appealed to me very much. Not only do these options not appeal to me, I think they are worse than what we're doing now. So I would be for gradual evolution. I actually recommended a sentence limit before. Maybe Cathy's word limit is better than a sentence limit. I don't know. But I do think that we ought to keep it short. I would like to address a different issue. The one cost that has been mentioned is that associated with writing a new statement each time--that it is too hard for us in terms of the process. You pass out a draft, we've got to read it and think about it, and so forth. I've actually thought about that issue, and in my view, it is less of a problem than we may think. First, in the way these statements have gone, they really haven't changed all that much from meeting to meeting. Second, in the last few Bluebooks, Vincent has described how the statement might change, so we have some warning or advance notice. Consequently, when we see the final statement, I don't think it's that much of a shock. In terms of the process, I believe it's something we can handle at each meeting. In sum, I think the formulaic approaches don't really do it. Second, I think we have overrated the cost of writing a separate short statement each time to convey exactly what it is we want to convey.

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. POOLE.
text: But in the process of trying to land that plane in the simulator of the aircraft carrier, I ended up producing what the instructor called "pilot-induced oscillation." [Laughter] That means finding oneself wobbling first one way and then the other way. And I think we have some of the same concerns about monetary policy. We don't want to overreact-- 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: Let me ask--did you land or didn't you land? 

MR. POOLE. "Back in May when we raised it to 6-1/2 percent, some rates were above and some rates were below."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MS. DUKE.
text: I don't think that the "severe financial stress" scenario is out of the question right now. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN BERNANKE.
text: Thank you. Vice Chairman. 
speaker: VICE CHAIRMAN GEITHNER.
text: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I support alternative B for the reasons that you and many others have already stated. 

CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. "[Laughter] I listened very carefully to what has been said."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. PARRY.
text: It didn't last quarter, I don't think. Government spending last quarter actually declined very substantially. The rate of growth in the fourth quarter was up, so maybe it just got swamped. 
speaker: MR. PRELL.
text: Defense spending in the third quarter was flat and we have a noticeable uptick based on what we would perceive to be the deliveries. Obviously, there is some very erratic timing; some procurement items show up or don't show up in any given time period. 

MR. PARRY. "Are there any indicators that support the slowing in state and local spending to that extent?"


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. HOENIG.
text: Prices of raw materials are showing some increases. On the national front, I think that the fundamentals remain strong, and we expect, as the Greenbook does, growth at about the potential rate of 2 percent. With the capacity in the economy being used at its current level, the rise in core inflation from 1994 through 1995 probably will continue, and I think that is a risk we have to keep in mind as I have said before. That concludes my comments. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: President McTeer. 

MR. MCTEER. "Retail sales along the border area have improved a little lately."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. GRAMLEY.
text: This is going to come back to haunt us if we don't decide to act. And we can't act by just confirming what happened in the market in the past couple of weeks. 
speaker: MR. FORRESTAL.
text: Do you interpret alternative B as just validating that? 
speaker: MR. GRAMLEY.
text: I do indeed. That's what we're saying. 

MR. BOYKIN. "That was the question I wanted to ask: If we take "B" as specified and say 7 to 11 percent, have we done anything?"


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. KOHN.
text: I was asking myself about "and spending had been slightly weaker"--that raises the question "than what?" In truth, it is slightly weaker than anticipated, but the Committee doesn't have a record showing exactly what we're anticipating. It is slightly weaker, if you think about the industrial production data, than it was a few months ago. So I think it can stand without "than anticipated." Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. "President Pianalto."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. FORRESTAL.
text: We have some complications on the international side, but I think we ought to heed the adage that you quoted and keep running in place--maintain the status quo or an even keel or whatever it is. My tendency would be a little different from Tom Melzer's in that the inflation picture to me doesn't look all that bad, and the question I keep asking myself is: What risk would we run by giving the economy a little boost? I don't think now is the time to do it, but I think that down the road perhaps I would tend to ease up just a little. At the moment, however, I would opt for alternative B with the specifications and the borrowing as indicated at $300 to $400 million. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: Mr. Martin. 

MR. MARTIN. "We will release the record of policy actions for December in a couple of days, so we are going to release some interesting numbers one day and some interesting history the next day."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. MEYER.
text: I can support your recommendation for a 50 basis point easing today and a statement that the risks remain unbalanced toward economic weakness. On the other hand, I could also have joined Presidents Minehan and Broaddus in supporting a case for slowing the pace of easing today and moving only 25 basis points. That might have been a very effective way of signaling the sentiment that we now need to move toward a more cautious monetary policy and that we may not be far from ending the easing cycle. But more importantly, Mr. Chairman, I agree with you on what I believe is the really important issue, and that is the prospect that we may be near the point--and perhaps after this move at the point--where we have to be very cautious about any further easing. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: Governor Ferguson. 

MR. FERGUSON. "Thank you, Mr. Chairman."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. AXILROD.
text: If you had $500 million of borrowing and the same free reserves, it may be a little higher--perhaps an eighth of a point, I would guess--but it isn't very far off. 
speaker: MS. SEGER.
text: At some point, though, do we at this Committee meeting have to take into account these changing attitudes toward excess reserves? 
speaker: MR. AXILROD.
text: That's something Mr. Sternlight can gauge in the course of the two-week period. All he can do is see what's happening to excess reserves and try to gauge a sense of the demands using whatever information we have, including how the funds rate is moving and what we think is governing the distribution of reserves. 
speaker: MS. SEGER.
text: Well, okay. 

MR. STERNLIGHT. "We have been making an allowance in this current reserve period; even though $600 million is in there for excess reserves, we've been thinking of it as somewhat higher and not rushing in to take out what has looked over the last couple of days, for example, like more than enough reserves for the path."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. HOSKINS.
text: So, I do think that the explanation that you give--and I would prefer to link this motion if it carries to the economy and M2--needs to be done carefully. Again, I didn't want to tie it continuously to the credit crunch because then we're locking ourselves in. As the banking system gets weaker, which I think is a structural problem over time and not a cyclical problem, we'll be tying ourselves to something like that. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: When we talk about credit stringency here, hopefully you're referring to a sort of supply-side effect of restraint in the context of weakening demand. In a sense if we're trying to maintain a steady supply and the markets are tightening up independently of what we are doing--at, say, an 8 percent funds rate--I think this is a classic case of what's wrong with [focusing policy on] an 8 percent funds rate or some other fixed funds rate. 

MR. HOSKINS. "I don't see that yet, and that's why I'm having a little trouble right now."

Full utterance: Well, I would agree if I could see a little more clearly that that was happening. If, as I think Don suggested, we begin to see some real weakness in M2, then we would recognize this as a severe credit related problem. I don't see that yet, and that's why I'm having a little trouble right now.

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: yes
Prior discussion:
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: Well, I just changed something. Instead of just putting that number in parallel [with the others], I said "with a substantial slowing of M1 to a rate of 5 to 6 percent." And then the rest of it would be "might" and "would." There's nothing else there that needs to be changed particularly, is there? 
speaker: MR. PARTEE.
text: Would you like to change that funds rate range to 9 percent at the top? 

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. "We could if you wanted to."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. HOSKINS.
text: In fact, if we are, we probably won't have to tighten policy down the road. So, my view would be to accept "B." I don't feel strongly about the language because I don't think the market will misinterpret it. The Humphrey-Hawkins report will be in front of them when that language comes out; I don't know what we're going to want to say at that point in time. My bias would be to leave it asymmetric as we have been doing. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.
text: President Boykin. 

MR. BOYKIN. "But it seems to me that more or less what I'm hearing is the commitment for a conference call before the next meeting, which gives the opportunity to make any slight adjustment if that's wrong."


Opinion: no