00:00As you saw a few moments ago, the committee decided to maintain the target range for the Fed funds rate
00:06at three and a half to three and three quarters percent in support of the Fed's dual mandate.
00:14The committee also reaffirmed its policy of maintaining ample reserves in the banking system.
00:21Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace, despite elevated uncertainty that owes in part to the conflict in the
00:30Middle East.
00:31Productivity growth and capital investment both strong.
00:36Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little.
00:43We recognize that inflation has been running well ahead of the Fed's long-stated inflation goal of two percent.
00:51That's been going on for more than five years.
00:56Persistently high prices are a burden for the American people.
01:01But the recent past need not be prologue.
01:04I am pleased to report that members of the FOMC are unambiguous and unanimous.
01:13This committee will deliver price stability.
01:18At any institution, a change in leadership is a natural and timely opportunity to reaffirm its mission,
01:27to review current practices, and to consider whether those practices best meet our objectives.
01:35My Fed colleagues and I will be working in close collaboration to ask what changes might improve the conduct of
01:43monetary policy.
01:45On that score, you might have already noticed something, a difference in today's policy statement.
01:51It's a bit shorter, a bit simpler, and it dispenses with some older language.
01:57That statement just gives you the facts, as best we can judge it.
02:02Absent also is so-called forward guidance, which we agreed was not well-suited to the current policy conjuncture.
02:10This afternoon, you also received the usual summary of economic projections.
02:17It's been the practice of this committee for participants to submit these projections,
02:21and I have encouraged my colleagues to continue to do so.
02:26I, however, have refrained from offering any projections of my own,
02:30consistent with my long-held views on the SEP, at least as currently structured.
02:36In the median projections, real GDP rises at 2.2% this year, 2.3% next year,
02:44and total PC inflation runs at 3.6% this year, 2.3% next year.
02:51The unemployment rate stands at about 4.3%.
02:54The median participant judges that the appropriate federal funds rate
02:59to be at 3.8% at the end of this year, and 3.6% at the end of
03:05next.
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