kakeith406/op-fed huggingface dataset:
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR.   ROOS.
text: Would we if we move [the FOMC meeting date]? 
speaker: MR. BLACK.
text: Yes, sure. 
speaker: MR. BALLES.
text: I might suggest, Mr. Chairman, the possibility of having this meeting on January 8 if that's agreeable. If we're going to follow it with the Conference of Presidents, that takes another day. Is something wrong with January 8th? 

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. "Only for Governor Wallich; I think that's all."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. AXILROD.
text: What we had up until three days ago is closer to the historical pattern. Now we have much less borrowing than one would expect historically, and I would assume borrowing is going to jump back up. 
speaker: MR. STERNLIGHT.
text: If I can interject, these last few days seem difficult to explain; the rather low level of borrowing is just not what one would associate with a funds rate of around 2 percent over the discount rate. And, as Steve mentioned, because of that we made an interim adjustment in what we were aiming for in nonborrowed reserves, feeling that to try to press nonborrowed reserves down to the path level in this current week would have meant going into the market and extracting reserves when the funds rate was around 13-3/4 or 14 percent. That obviously didn't make sense; and in effect we've been running this week with an assumption that an adjustment of about $500 to $600 million should be added to the nonborrowed or taken away from the [borrowed] reserves. 

MR. PARTEE. "That's what bothers me."

Full utterance: I know it's awfully early, but what bothers me about this whole experiment so far, Paul, is that I don't get any sense of dynamics working. That is, we had a very nice outcome taking the quarter as a whole. I think everybody around the table would agree that the money number calmed down and the markets have been better and all that. But that all could have been an adjustment to the one-time change in conditions that occurred early in October, with much higher rates and the availability constraint and that kind of thing. Since then I haven't had much sense of dynamics in the process that would lead to, say, restoration of a higher growth rate in money if it were lower than what we wanted. And it has tended to be lower than we wanted. Perhaps it's just too early, but I don't see it. That's what bothers me.

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: yes
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. KICHLINE.
text: Right. 
speaker: MR. PARTEE.
text: Is that M-1A or M-1B? 
speaker: MR. KICHLINE.
text: It's M-1A, but I'm not sure we would want to forecast a great deal of difference in interest rates on the basis of M-1A and M-1B. 
speaker: MR. BLACK.
text: Jim, I was a little surprised about the magnitude of the announced increase in real GNP for the fourth quarter. Where would you guess that will end up after the final revisions are in? 

MR. KICHLINE. "We don't have any additional information; in fact, I'm not sure that the Commerce Department has anything in the way of hard evidence right now."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: Did I hear a second? Without objection the minutes are approved. 
speaker: MR. SCHULTZ.
text: That's the same problem I have in the Board meetings! 
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: Mr. Pardee. 
speaker: MR. PARDEE.
text: [Statement--see Appendix.] 

VICE CHAIRMAN SOLOMON. "Basically, cooperation with them on intervention had been very good, But they have this dilemma, and they are very, very aware of it."

Full utterance: Mr. Chairman, I think it's worth emphasizing one point, which is that the reluctance of the Bundesbank to intervene directly in support of the dollar on as large a scale in the last few days--which means depressing the D-mark--is [related to] the fact that they are at the bottom of the EMS. So there is this contradiction and dilemma for them. Basically, cooperation with them on intervention had been very good, But they have this dilemma, and they are very, very aware of it.

Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. ROOS.
text: The question is how much-- 
speaker: MR. SCHULTZ.
text: And then we'd need at least $40 billion to support the market. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: Well, how many people find the proposal that is on the table acceptable? 
speaker: SPEAKER(?).
text: Voting members? 
speaker: MR. ROOS.
text: This is an acceptance with a waffle. 

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. "I think enough hands were raised that we can vote."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: I just want to make sure because if we go ahead now we may run into some problems in the next month, more internally than externally, I suspect. But what we'll look toward is negotiating it that way. Would we [ordinarily] have approved these in November or December? 
speaker: MR. PARDEE.
text: In November, because the first renewals are in early December. So we have to act between now and November. 

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. "I say that because the Treasury is so far in debt that there is quite a bit of absorptive capacity in the United States government for the next month or two anyway."


Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. MORRIS.
text: Are we going to bring sandwiches in here today? 
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: Well, we were not going to. We should have, obviously. 
speaker: MR. MAYO.
text: Well, let's decide quickly. 
speaker: MR. CORRIGAN.
text: Let's keep going. 

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. "I would like a phrase in there indicating "over a period of time" or something like that so it doesn't sound as if these ranges are applied rigidly on a day-to-day basis."

Full utterance: Let's try to keep going and see what happens. Let's distribute [this draft]. I looked at it and the language is not perfect. I don't know whether people will even agree with the concept, but let me go over it and tell you what I am trying to convey because the language may not be adequate to convey what I am trying to communicate. The whole thing indicates some sense of uncertainty about what the figures will mean in the short run, but the first sentence is simply designed to say that we are tentatively proceeding for this first-quarter period in accordance with our [preliminary long-run] plans [announced] before. As I noted, I don't think that raises all the issues as to whether the long-term plan is really the one we want to follow for the year as a whole because of this expectation that the money supply may be a little softer in the near term. The second sentence identifies just what that is. There is a practical problem. These [figures] are cited as the midpoint of those long-term ranges and M2 is probably going to be higher than that. So there is a question of whether we want to leave that as the mechanical midpoints of the ranges. The next sentence says that we are not going to give a precise figure for M-1A and M-1B right now because we don't know what the NOW and ATS accounts are going to be. And it says that's the way we will try to conduct ourselves in terms of the specific job of setting forth the reserve path. Then an important sentence is the next one, which says that we want [our short-term targets] to be consistent [with our longer-term targets for] next year, but we are not going to be disturbed by a shortfall. That has perhaps some implication that we'd be just as happy if [monetary growth did] fall short of these figures. The reservation is that we are not going to [push] for a shortfall by tightening the money market further, but rather that if the shortfall arises in an atmosphere of some relaxation of money market pressures it would be accepted. It's an acceptance rather than a seeking through aggressive tightening action. The last sentence is more or less standard, but the numbers are important. I would like a phrase in there indicating "over a period of time" or something like that so it doesn't sound as if these ranges are applied rigidly on a day-to-day basis. That has always been the understanding. So, that is the sense of it; other people may have quite different ideas. I'd avoid the term "weekly average;" it sounds rather rigid and we have been over--

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: And I would like to delegate to President Solomon the task of giving us some recommendations as to how we may maintain a detailed record for members of the Committee and otherwise without excessive duplication. If you would give us recommendations at an appropriate time in a coming meeting, President Solomon, I would appreciate it. 
speaker: SPEAKER(?).
text: Amen. 
speaker: VICE CHAIRMAN SOLOMON.
text: Just one more blow we're going to strike in favor of deregulation [or] simplification. Okay. 

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. "Under the old operating technique we could have maintained a penalty rate and we never did during these periods; and the discrepancy got extremely wide every time we had a tight money period."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. AXILROD.
text: I don't believe we have noticed any substantial increase or change in the other liabilities category, but I haven't inspected that personally. We have not found any real evidence of something like that going on. But [money supply] behavior in the last two weeks of December and the first week of January was rather odd; my inclination has been to throw those three weeks out and start [comparing] recent weeks of January with where we were because they did drop sharply and then rose sharply. There was a very big increase in M-1A after adjustments. 
speaker: MR. BALLES.
text: I thought you might have had a chance to look at the trend of the so-called other liabilities that came in. 

MR. AXILROD. "But we have to look elsewhere."

Full utterance: No, I just can't answer that directly. We didn't find anything, but there is this peculiarity of the deposit data that we think is just a bad seasonal. But we have to look elsewhere.

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: yes
Stance toward easing (NLI): neutral
Prior discussion:
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: You have? We haven't published a new one. The question is when we should indicate that there is a new target equivalent for the actual figures, if we change that assumption. 
speaker: MR. AXILROD.
text: We have postponed that two-thirds because the latest data coming in suggest that [proportion from demand deposits] remains very high, and we have stayed with the same [assumption]. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: But at some point we will have to change that other target, won't we? 

MR. AXILROD. "For sure we would do it around midyear."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: VICE CHAIRMAN SOLOMON.
text: At least we in New York, Steve, are a little surprised by the interest rate levels projected to be consistent with each of these alternatives. To me these interest rates are very much on the high side. Certainly the market would think they are on the high side. And since they're derived on fairly unreliable historical relationships based on the model, it may be that the market is less wrong and more right. We ought to take with a grain of salt the interest rate projections; I'd think of them as being more the outside limit on the upper side rather than as the most likely result. 

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. "All I want is an instinct at this point."

Full utterance: May I just go back and ask Mr. Roos and Mr. Partee if they are ready to pronounce judgment? This all should be considered very tentative. All I want is an instinct at this point. Consistent with alternative 2 for the short run, meaning this year, would you leave the ranges unchanged or would you lower M-1B presumably?

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: yes
Prior discussion:
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: Well, I'm including the off-budget finance to the Treasury, but I'm not including the other. But it's an enormous amount of financing. 
speaker: MR. STERNLIGHT.
text: You're talking about the financing need in the fourth quarter? 
speaker: VICE CHAIRMAN SOLOMON.
text: Yes. 
speaker: MR. STERNLIGHT.
text: I think the Treasury looks for something in the mid-$30 billion area; $35 billion or so is what the market expects. 

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. "I don't know whether that's possible or not."

Full utterance: Or it just could get higher. In any event, frankly, getting M-1B in the range is very much a two-edged proposition so far as I'm concerned. It has the moderate merit of looking great when we're testifying, but it doesn't look great even when one is testifying if M2 and all the other aggregates are above the range. I'd rather have [M-1B] below the range if the others are above, quite frankly, just in the pure presentational sense. But a great big increase [in M-1B] is not going to look good to what I will call the market or to people wondering what we're doing and whether we're easing aggressively in the face of sour business news. Also, just in terms of the performance for the year as a whole, while it's very hard to evaluate the quantitative magnitude, there are reasons to believe that M-1B should be lower than we thought when we set the targets, particularly in light of the effects money market funds, which have only doubled or more this year, have on that particular aggregate. I also recognize that it may have the other kind of effect on the other aggregate. But the interpretation that is going to be put on this and its real effect depend upon whether we have to push or whether we accept it, and that's what we've been struggling with here. I think there is--if I detect it correctly--some fair reluctance to push M-1B growth too high. It's a matter of judgment what too high means. On the other hand, there's quite a willingness to accept a high number if it can come without pushing too hard. I don't know whether that's possible or not. That's about where I am anyway, and I suspect that sums up the feeling that a lot of people have. If we take this backwards, what is your infamous borrowing number at the moment--$875 or $884 million or thereabouts?

Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. WALLICH.
text: I think we could do this on the grounds that there is an element of disorder when the market pays little attention to fundamentals like inflation and-- 
speaker: VICE CHAIRMAN SOLOMON.
text: But that still comes back to a view about the level. I'm not unhappy about this because it's a beautiful [chance] to finally get a change and a perception of a change in the Sprinkel policy. I do think, though, that the market will be a little confused because when we've had these disorderly or volatile markets [before] we have not intervened and all of a sudden we are intervening in a situation--and this is a big movement-- 
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: I'm not talking about doing it on a really trivial movement; I'm not talking about a couple of pfennigs anyway. 

MR. WALLICH. "But we have never said anything other than that we would fight disorder."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: I think one can say that about most of these other countries. So we may be talking about the timing, but we are not talking about the essence of the matter in that many of these countries, as are companies at home and banking practices at home, are on an unsustainable course. We can't have a banking system that's totally loaned up to Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and Yugoslavia, but that's the direction they were going in. And some day that had to stop. 
speaker: MS. TEETERS.
text: Will these containment efforts be done in cooperation with the BIS the way Mexico was? 

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. "And we get into this ridiculous situation where a country that is putting in $12-1/2 million has the same voice as the United States does."


Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. ROOS.
text: Would you think it would be helpful in making some of these very basic decisions, if some input were invited from whatever Reserve Banks might be interested in getting into the act on these studies, as far as just expressing themselves? There are some very fundamental changes in the wind and I would think that anyone within the System who had intelligent input to offer should be encouraged. I think we ought to hear the Reserve Bank points of view as well as those of the [Board] staff. 
speaker: MR. WALLICH.
text: We at one time had a Committee on the Directive which got together when there were changes of this kind. Conceivably, we could revive that. 

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. "We can't be too cumbersome at this point, but any Reserve Bank that wants to contribute should be in touch with Mr. Axilrod."

Full utterance: Well, that's right. But let's see where we want to go from the preliminary paper. I think we're going to get it done by the next meeting. We can't be too cumbersome at this point, but any Reserve Bank that wants to contribute should be in touch with Mr. Axilrod. He has already been in touch with some people at the Reserve Banks.

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. GRAMLEY.
text: What I said was: It is better than M1 and I know of no alternative at the moment. And because of those uncertainties, I think we have to use a lot of flexibility--in effect give a lot of attention to how much movement of interest rates we're willing to tolerate to shut off an excessive growth of M2 or to stimulate growth that is too low. If we're not awfully careful, we're going to be chasing an aggregate the demand for which is being changed by financial innovation rather than something fundamental going on in the economy. That's why I want to shift adjust this as soon as [possible]. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: Mr. Guffey. 

MR. GUFFEY. "It looks to be very stable on a quarterly basis, but if you look at it on a monthly basis, just taking this year as an example, it has ranged from about 4.4 percent growth in February and what would be 4.5 percent in December, if we hit that [estimate], up to about 14 percent."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: And I think that's what I hear around the table, too. 
speaker: MR. ROOS.
text: But it does have a reinflationary potential, doesn't it? Again, I'm not being critical, but isn't this fraught with danger in that regard? 
speaker: MR. GRAMLEY.
text: It could easily have a deflationary potential. It depends on how the judgments work out. 

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. "It's very important that we maintain that, but can we use such a simple rule as we have been using when the relationships between the rule and the economy, which never were all that great, have broken down at the moment?"

Full utterance: I think what you might be saying, Larry, which a number of people have said--and I have great sympathy--is that the value of these rules is to discipline ourselves as much as anything. And if there are too many things to look at, one can always find some way to avoid that discipline. I guess we just have to appeal more to our internal discipline, but I think that is one of the things we have to lose. I don't want to overemphasize the difference, but very broadly I would say we were willing to emphasize some of these things so much because we were preoccupied with that need for disciplining ourselves and disciplining the economy. We were willing to accept a lot of guff, if that's the right word, and a lot of potential side effects because [the goal] was all important. It's still very important but the risks have shifted. We have made some progress on inflation; we got it turned around. It's very important that we maintain that, but can we use such a simple rule as we have been using when the relationships between the rule and the economy, which never were all that great, have broken down at the moment? So, we have to look at one to one. I don't think I am saying anything very different from what I heard around the table.

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: yes
Stance toward easing (NLI): ambiguous
Prior discussion:
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: Well, I can't say that for sure. If it's a 50/50 split, it will be $250 million. But, frankly, the United States was the progenitor of this and we told them we, the United States, would do more than 50 percent if that was necessary. 
speaker: MR. FORD.
text: Why 50/50? Even in the United Nations, we don't take 50/50 any more. 

CHAIRMAN VOLCKER. "And the BIS wanted them to put in 50/50, particularly considering all this other stuff."


Opinion: no
Prior discussion:
speaker: MR. PRELL.
text: So the composition of risk and the credit flows that we have do reflect, I think, this crowding out phenomenon in the context of a restraining monetary policy that's still aiming at, and should achieve, some deceleration of inflation in the context of moderate growth. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: Mr. Corrigan. 
speaker: MR. CORRIGAN.
text: In this flow of funds chart, for example, you don't have the business borrowing by '84 getting anywhere near where it was even in '81. I have the same problem: As I look through this in terms of the sources and uses, it's almost inconceivable to me that you could produce the kind of growth that you have there without putting a lot more pressures on interest rates than-- 
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: It's that 40 percent increase in profits! 

MR. PRELL. "So, we have a rather restrained outlook for capital spending."

Full utterance: The short-term interest rates in our forecast recede only very slightly at the same time that the inflation rate is edging downward. At current levels one would assess short-term real rates as being rather high. And if it's hard to assess the long rates, then certainly relative to the current inflation rate those too are very, very high. So, we have a rather restrained outlook for capital spending.

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: yes
Prior discussion:
speaker: VICE CHAIRMAN SOLOMON.
text: The fact that M1 is behaving in the screwy way that we all expected and that there seems to be a permanent shift toward holding a large savings component in Ml balances in NOWs and Super NOWs should not [lead us to] generalize that there has been that big an increase in the money supply. I had the feeling that for good and rational and sufficient reasons we deemphasized Ml. And now our psychology and our thinking as well as that of the markets seems to be creeping back to a situation where everybody is paying attention to Ml and these weekly numbers. I would just take exception to the generalization that, in terms of a stimulus to the economy, the money supply has increased that much. 
speaker: CHAIRMAN VOLCKER.
text: Mr. Corrigan. 

MR. CORRIGAN. "That's not going to last forever."

Full utterance: Mr. Chairman, with regard to the near term, I'm inclined to the view that we'll probably do better than the staff forecast in terms of real growth and maybe even in terms of inflation. But I'm not nearly as sanguine about 1984, certainly. I think for some of the reasons Mr. Martin and Mr. Solomon suggested on the international front, we're by no means out of the woods there. But in addition to that, I must say in looking at the budget process and the body language that it is associated with, it doesn't seem to me that any real progress has been made on the so-called structural deficit--maybe some, but certainly nothing to write home about. But on top of that I do think we have to recognize that there is a lot of pent up pressure out there to raise prices. I think we're going to be able to avoid a manifestation of that pressure, perhaps for a period of time, simply because the productivity/unit labor cost phenomenon is working almost perfectly right now. That's not going to last forever. So, as I say, the near term looks fine, but I'm just not sure about 1984. And, looking at the staff's implied forecast, it gets a little hard for me to imagine out in 1984 how we really can keep those interest rates where they have them with underlying conditions what they are.

Opinion: yes
About monetary policy: no