jerome h powell : semiannual monetary policy report to the congress testimony by mr jerome h powell, chair of the board of governors of the federal reserve system, before the committee on banking, housing, and urban affairs, us senate, washington dc, 7 march 2023. * * * chairman brown, ranking member scott, and other members of the committee, i appreciate the opportunity to present the federal reserve's semiannual monetary policy report. my colleagues and i are acutely aware that high inflation is causing significant hardship, and we are strongly committed to returning inflation to our 2 percent goal. over the past year, we have taken forceful actions to tighten the stance of monetary policy. we have covered a lot of ground, and the full effects of our tightening so far are yet to be felt. even so, we have more work to do. our policy actions are guided by our dual mandate to promote maximum employment and stable prices. without price stability, the economy does not work for anyone. in particular, without price stability, we will not achieve a sustained period of labor market conditions that benefit all. i will review the current economic situation before turning to monetary policy. current economic situation and outlook the data from january on employment, consumer spending, manufacturing production, and inflation have partly reversed the softening trends that we had seen in the data just a month ago. some of this reversal likely reflects the unseasonably warm weather in january in much of the country. still, the breadth of the reversal along with revisions to the previous quarter suggests that inflationary pressures are running higher than expected at the time of our previous federal open market committee ( fomc ) meeting. from a broader perspective, inflation has moderated somewhat since the middle of last year but remains well above the fomc's longer - run objective of 2 percent. the 12month change in total personal consumption expenditures ( pce ) prices has slowed from its peak of 7 percent in june to 5. 4 percent in january as energy prices have declined and supply chain bottlenecks have eased. over the past 12 months, core pce inflation, which excludes the volatile food and energy prices, was 4. 7 percent. as supply chain bottlenecks have eased and tighter policy has restrained demand, inflation in the core goods sector has fallen. and while housing services inflation remains too high, the flattening out in rents evident in recently signed leases points to a deceleration in this component of inflation over

£50 note character selection announcement speech given by mark carney governor of the bank of england science and industry museum, manchester 15 july 2019 i am grateful to clare macallan for her assistance in preparing these remarks, and to matthew corder, toby davies, sarah john, elizabeth levett, debbie marriott and james oxley for their help with background research and analysis. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / news / speeches it ’ s a pleasure to be at the science and industry museum in manchester. these galleries testify to the uk ’ s rich history of discovery in science, technology and industry. a little more than eight months ago, the bank sought to recognise the uk ’ s extraordinary scientific heritage by asking people across the country to “ think science ” in order to help us choose the character to feature on the new £50 note. we were overwhelmed by the response. in six weeks, almost a quarter of a million nominations were submitted, from which we distilled a very long list of nearly 1, 000 unique characters. 1 the hard work of narrowing down these names to a shortlist of twelve options required the incomparable knowledge and tireless work of the banknote character advisory committee. 2 on behalf of the bank, i would like to thank the external members of the advisory committee – dr maggie aderin - pocock, dr emily grossman, professor simon schaffer, dr simon singh, professor sir david cannadine, sandy nairne and baroness lola young – for their invaluable expert advice and unbridled enthusiasm. the characters that made it through to the final shortlist were : mary anning charles babbage and ada lovelace paul dirac rosalind franklin stephen hawking caroline herschel and william herschel dorothy hodgkin james clerk maxwell srinivasa ramanujan ernest rutherford frederick sanger alan turing the shortlist epitomises the breadth and depth of scientific achievement in the uk. their work covers both the theoretical and the practical, and spans from the smallest building blocks of the universe to the nature of life itself. characters must be non - fictional and deceased. we also need to ensure that a suitable, easy to recognise, portrait of the person is available. https : / / www. bankofengland. co. uk / about / people / banknote - character - advisory - committee. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co