格林斯潘开创美联储沟通方式，前理事贝齐·杜克回顾

That's welcome. You were also on the board of directors of the Richmond Fed from 1998 to 2000. That time, of course, overlapped when Alan Greenspan was was chair of the fed. Just today, as you remember his legacy. What is it to you and to us?

So a couple of things for for Chairman Greenspan. And this is both a sad day, but a day to celebrate, certainly a life well lived. Um, I think the two things when I think about it and remarkably, first one is communications and not in the way you might think, because he was so famous for that sort of doublespeak that nobody could understand. But he really pioneered fed communications and the communications that we're used to today in hearing from the committee after the meetings. And then the other piece would be his his crisis management. He oversaw a number of crises. And again, um, shepherded the the economy and the country through them in ways that had not been necessarily, um, normal operations for the fed. Yeah. You know, it's interesting, um, when we think about his legacy and his standing, and he really did make make a mark. I mean, what, you know, as I was curious about things you said more recently in terms of the market environment, and I do wonder how he was thinking, um, about the environment where we are in today, where we question so much whether or not we will have an independent fed. It's hard to believe that, you know, the most revered US central bank globally is having these kind of thoughts, or people around it are having these thoughts. Well, you know, in Greenspan's day, nobody dared challenge the independence of the fed. And quite frankly, nobody on the fed. A federal Open Market committee dared challenge Alan Greenspan. So, um, things are a lot different today. And and the independence, I think I still believe the fed is going to remain independent. Um, I've been very much heartened by Kevin Morse's first statement since he's been there and his first press conference. I think he's made it clear that he's going to, um, certainly carry the flag for fed independence. You know, it's interesting that you you went to the fed independence part of this because up, up until Greenspan, the Fed had been under pressure when when it came to its independence. I mean, certainly during the Nixon administration, I think it's fair to say at this point. Yeah. And, um, you know, certainly Volcker came in at a time when when the Fed's lack of independence had really caused difficulty for the country and for the president. So, um, you know, that's the last, I think, example we have of the fed not acting independently. And, um, it was only when Volcker got there and really decided to move forward and conquer inflation that since that day, at least, the the Fed's independence has been taken as seriously important to the country. Um, recently there have been so many challenges to that. Um, but hopefully between the courts and, and also, you know, some understanding of exactly how dangerous it is to bring the Fed's independence into question and what that does to markets and investors and our economy in general. The other thing, though, you know, you think about this dual mandate. Um, Betsy, when it comes to the Federal Reserve and, you know, not the financial markets being a part really of their mandate. And and, you know, the read by investors, the Greenspan put the expectation that if things got messy, that he would be there to shore up markets. Um, good thing, bad thing. You know, when you think about what the Federal Reserve is really supposed to be focusing on. Yeah. So there was always this idea that that, that somehow the fed would protect markets in, in some way. And I don't think the Fed's you know, it's certainly not in the Fed's remit to protect markets, but to provide liquidity and stability and to, um, to make sure that that panic doesn't take hold is really the Fed's reason for being originally. So the fed was originally formed because back before there was a fed, you had um, they called them country banks at that time, country banks and city banks in the country. Banks would borrow from the city banks. And then if the city banks didn't have enough money or got concerned about the country banks, they quit lending to them. And then those country banks didn't have enough liquidity to operate. They would fail, and then you'd have panic around the country. So, um, that's why the fed has a discount window. That's why the fed has its lending authority. And that's really, really one of the most important functions of the fed. One of the things we talked about with Mike McKee last hour, who covers international economic and policy for, for Bloomberg TV and radio, was the way that Chair Greenspan changed the way the bank communicates with the public. And I'm curious now if if you think and not just the public, but markets too, um, net net right now, is the fed communicating enough?

Right now the Fed's communicating probably too much. And um, so so Chairman Greenspan did he originated the statement coming out after the committee meeting, after the FOMC meeting and originally came out a little bit later than it does now, and it finally moved to being, um, to come out right after the meeting ended. And he also originally it was the chairman statement alone and later became the committee statement which the committee would would ratify. Before that, I actually, um, as a banker, took a class in how to read through the weekly publications of the fed and try to discern where M1 and M2 and three were going and what the fed was trying to do. That was all you had to go on. And so I think it is really important that the fed communicate what it's thinking, what it's thinking about. The second thing Alan Greenspan put in the statement was something about the balance of risks. And you would at that point, they would talk about whether they thought risks were more on the inflation side, more on the unemployment side. And, you know, again, that helped markets understand what the fed was thinking. What has happened today, and I think particularly at the Dot plots, is that markets and investors now take right thoughts as this is where rates are going.