campbell, “ powell : stablecoin regulation belongs to the fed, ” american banker, september 27, 2022, https : / / www. americanbanker. com / news / powell - stablecoin - regulation - belongs - to - the - fed. - 12 do not allow for new forms of unregulated private money subject to classic forms of run risk, and with the associated spillovers and systemic implications for households, businesses, and the broader economy. conclusion that gets me back to the central point of my remarks, which is the need to balance innovation with safeguards. our goal is to create guardrails, while making room for innovation that can benefit consumers and the financial system more broadly. we are working with the other bank regulatory agencies to consider whether and how certain crypto - asset activity can be conducted in a manner that is consistent with safe and sound banking. we are also working toward providing additional clarity on our views of risks and effective risk management practices across a range of crypto - related activity. we will continue to be transparent with the banking sector and the public about our expectations. we will also work with the other agencies to align our approach to ensure that the same risks receive the same treatment. as we continue our efforts, we will work to support innovation by establishing the guardrails essential for sustainable, safe, and transparent markets. thank you.

deregulation of key industries have removed bottlenecks and increased the competitive supply response of many economies, especially ours, and these developments have been influential in suppressing price increases. it would be an exaggeration to imply that, whenever a potential cost increase emerges on the horizon, a capital investment is available to quell it. yet the veritable explosion of spending on high - tech equipment and software, which has raised the growth of the capital stock dramatically over the past five years, could hardly have occurred without a large increase in the pool of profitable projects available to business planners. as our experience over the past century and more attests, such surges in prospective investment profitability carry with them consequences for interest rates, which ultimately are part of the process that balances saving and investment in a non - inflationary economy. in these circumstances, rising credit demand is almost always reflected in an increase in corporate borrowing costs and that has, indeed, been our recent experience, especially in longer - dated debt issues. real interest rates on corporate bonds have risen more than a percentage point in the past couple of years. home mortgage rates have risen comparably. the federal reserve has responded in a similar manner, by gradually raising the federal funds rate over the past year. certainly, to have done otherwise - to have held the federal funds rate at last year ’ s level even as credit demands and market interest rates rose - would have required an inappropriately inflationary expansion of liquidity. it is difficult to imagine product price levels remaining tame over the longer haul had there been such an expansion of liquidity. in the event, of course, inflation has remained largely contained. to be sure, the tripling of crude oil prices has left its mark on “ headline ” inflation rates and inflicted considerable pain on some sectors of our economy. however, there is little evidence, at least to date, to suggest that oil price increases have started to embed themselves more broadly in the underlying cost structure of american business - that is, beyond the direct effects of the higher energy costs themselves. nevertheless, despite the very recent declines in the price of oil, there are risks here that need to be monitored closely. given the persistent strength of private credit demands, market interest rates would have risen even more were it not for the emergence of a sizable unified budget surplus following a long period of chronic deficits. more recently, the administration and the congress have wisely chosen to wall off the surplus in the social security