前美联储官员谈格林斯潘遗产与沃什政策路径

I didn't work with him directly, but I certainly heard a lot about him and his style of managing the Federal Open Market Committee. One when I was, uh, there at the fed. Certainly a great chair. Uh, 18.5 years, I would say, for 15 of those 18.5 years, he presided over the Great Moderation. And, uh, uh, his overall approach to policy was very successful, as so often happens, sometimes, uh, long periods of success. Uh, so the seeds of trouble, um, that's the insight that, uh, Hyman Minsky had. And I agree with it. And I think in the last three years of, uh, Alan Greenspan tenure, he may have not seen the signs of the coming real estate, uh, crisis and, uh, perhaps, uh, relied too heavily on his Basic belief in the market system and his light touch in terms of regulation. IRA Jersey are chief interest rate strategist. Was just saying that Greenspan understood the markets in a way that more recent federal chairs, Federal Reserve chairs, haven't. Do you think that played a role in his perhaps, um, his tenure, especially in the last three years, laying the groundwork for some of the things that happened starting in 2007?

Yes, I do. And he not only understood the markets, I think he understood the economy at a detailed level when I was there. It's part of his legend was that, you know, he could recite very arcane data from particular sectors, a trucking sector or, uh, the housing sector. He he knew well, quite literally hundreds of the data streams or data series intimately and really understood the economy. So, um, I think that can sometimes breed, uh, confidence, uh, as things are turning and, and in a way, that's what happened. Dennis, we now have a new chairman of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh. And we, the market heard from Mr. Warsh for the first time last week with this statement and with a press conference. What was your takeaway?

I thought he made a strong start to his, uh, incumbency in the chair's job. Uh, I went into the meeting thinking he might have to choose between being a change agent or being a kind of institutionalist who, uh, respected the collaboration and the collegiality of the of the fed. He he managed to to, I think, serve both of those masters. In his first meeting, he was forceful, uh, and reaffirming the commitment to bringing inflation down. Uh, he launched his five task forces. uh, I thought it was got to be almost humorous when he said, well, we have a task force for that and the press conference. Um, but, uh, you know, he showed that he is going to try to reform and improve the things about the way the institution works, but do it in a, in a collaborative way. And, uh, I thought that was, uh, uh, impressive how he was able to pull that balancing act off. Yeah, in some circles, people were saying that there's a task for the task force for that was kind of a drinking game or could be a drinking game. Um, I'll be at about 230 in the afternoon. Um, when it comes to his the hawkish hold that we got on Wednesday. Uh, there are a lot of questions heading into that fed meeting, Dennis, about whether Kevin Warsh spoke for the committee. He definitely spoke for the committee. Did he speak for himself you think and being that hawkish. Well, one of one of the things I was watching for as we went into the, uh, the press conferences. Whether he would be clear when he was speaking for the committee and clear when he was speaking for himself, and there was only 1 or 2 incidents where he had to make that that point clearly. And I and I think he did it. Um, I think maybe we have to read between the lines. His choice of not submitting a forecast and a dot was speaking for himself. Uh, at the same time, he characterized the the way the committee came out as reflected in the SP. It turned out in this press conference, the SP was the only thing we really had. That gives you a sense of the mind of the committee looking forward. And that to me was very clearly hawkish. Dennis, um, we have oil continuing to come down, and a lot of folks would say, all right, inflation problems fixing itself. Others saying whoa, whoa, whoa whoa. We've got more. It's more than energy out there in terms of inflationary pressures. How do you think the fed should look at inflation these days?

Well, certainly the fed should look at inflation broadly using, um, uh, you know, an approach that's uh, I don't know, much more, more like, uh, a wide array of inflation, uh, data as opposed to focusing on a single data point like PCI core PCI headline. Um, I, um, my own view is that we should be cautious about assuming that oil prices snap back to the pre-war, uh, levels. I think there are a lot of reasons to to just be concerned and worried that, uh, the price pressures will persist and conceivably, uh, the improvement we've seen in the last few days, depending on how the negotiations go, could reverse. So, um, you know, I'm being very cautious about predicting that oil prices are going to come down and the world is going to revert to pre-war, uh, conditions.