I think his departure is more a sign of stability and consensus at the Fed than a reflection of disagreement. |
I think it is more than several weeks for me! |
I think that Greenspan does have a very good intuitive sense of the economy, and the hardest thing with central banking is dealing with turning points, |
If you want to keep politicians out of the Fed's business, which we do, then we ought to stay out of their business. That's one viewpoint. |
It never got acrimonious. They're both very reasonable people, they know each other well, they're friends. They have, I think in the scheme of things, a relatively modest disagreement. |
It's the hardest type of thing for monetary policy. There's no right answer. You're going to have to make something worse. |
Monetary policy has never been partisan. Economists of both parties think that if you keep inflation low, you can keep employment high. |
The No. 1 goal of everyone who was there was keeping prices stable. |
There's no shortage of information. You have to figure out what's important. |
These are hard decisions, and I certainly feel for the affected employees, ... At the same time, the loan board has a responsibility to taxpayers, and to fostering the long-term health of the airline industry. Given our conclusion that the business plan submitted by the company is financially unsound, I believe it best not to approve the United proposal. |
This does not involve a change in the stance of monetary policy. It is a technical change, |
We have done everything but tell you what our target is ... if you want to look at our past behavior, it's kind of magical. In the last decade (inflation excluding food and energy) has been between 1% to 2%. |
We needed some bankers. Presidents have realized that you're better off leaving the Fed alone, by getting good people over there and letting them manage the economy. |
We're not explicitly targeting for any set of stock market values, ... Most of us think that we're managing the whole economy and we're trying to target inflation, unemployment. Period. |