, i ’ m watching, listening, and prepared to adjust my views depending on the data. 1 for more information on how the fomc specifies its goals, see statement on longer - run goals and monetary policy strategy, board of governors of the federal reserve system, amended january 30, 2018. 2 this question on whether jobs are “ hard to get ” is part of the survey conducted by nielsen for the conference board that is used to calculate the conference board ’ s consumer confidence index. information about the survey, including the latest press release of the index, is available at www. conferenceboard. org / data / consumerconfidence. cfm. 3 for example, the minutes of the december fomc meeting stated that “ participants also reported hearing more frequent concerns about the global economic outlook from business contacts ” ( page 8 ). later on the same page, the minutes said “ however, contacts in a number of districts appeared less upbeat than at the time of the november meeting, as concerns about a variety of factors — including trade policy, waning fiscal stimulus, slowing global economic growth, or financial market volatility — were reportedly beginning to weigh on business sentiment. ” see minutes of the federal open market committee : december 18 – 19, 2018, board of governors of the federal reserve system, january 9, 2019. 4 see fomc issues addendum to the policy normalization principles and plans, board of governors of the federal reserve system, june 14, 2017. 5 see john c. williams,'normal ’ monetary policy in words and deeds, september 28, 2018. 6 see fomc communications related to policy normalization, board of governors of the federal reserve system, updated june 13, 2018. 4 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches

the behavior of forward interest rates in financial markets, and, second, the pattern of external imbalances. these features are interesting, in part, because they seem somewhat anomalous, or inconsistent with what the past has led us to expect. they seem likely to be related to each other and both are a feature of the changes underway in global financial integration. understanding the forces behind these phenomena or anomalies is important to thinking through what they mean for policy. when alan greenspan first used the term “ conundrum ” to describe the surprising behavior of forward interest rates, he was reacting to the decline in forward nominal rates over a period in which the federal open market committee was raising its federal funds target rate. this behavior of forward rates, the counterpart of which is the behavior of the bond yield curve, looked anomalous both in comparison to observations from past tightening cycles and with what seemed to be strong evidence about the fundamental soundness of the outlook for the real economy. the source of the relatively low level of nominal rates is still a matter of considerable debate. part of the explanation lies in the decline in expectations of future inflation and uncertainty about future inflation. part of the explanation may also lie in greater confidence that the secular decline in the variability of economic growth observed over the past two decades in the united states is likely to continue. however, even with the information provided by the development of the market for inflationindexed government securities, we have less ability than we would like to draw conclusions about what any nominal forward rate means for expectations about the level of future real rates, uncertainty about future real rates, and what those might imply about expectations about future economic activity. this uncertainty makes it harder to assess the appropriate path of monetary policy. the other surprising feature of the current economic environment is the pattern of global imbalances, and the size and persistence of the u. s. current account deficit. as alan greenspan has explained, the greater dispersion in external imbalances can be seen as the inevitable result of fundamentally healthy changes in the world economy. as the world progresses toward increasingly integrated financial and goods markets, other things being equal, one might expect to see an increase in the number of countries with surpluses or deficits, and potentially larger surpluses and deficits, as flows of both financial assets and goods work to equalize desired saving and investment around the world. if one were confident that observed imbalances simply reflected a more efficient allocation of the world