Brian Sack Quotations

He will stress the nature of the initial conditions: an economy at full employment likely to be growing at an above-trend rate in the first half of this year, and inflation already near the upper end of the comfort zone.

Greenspan continued to be the most influential committee member. However, his dominance was markedly diminished, in that his total market impact was 'only' about twice as large as the next FOMC member.

Greenspan continued to be the most influential committee member.

Markets are certainly focused on people who speak effectively about macroeconomic issues and the outlook for policy. The key issue here may be whether they choose to speak clearly and forcefully about near- term economic issues.

The statement took a modest step toward becoming more forward looking. That is the direction we see of communication more generally.

The most provocative interpretation (of this change) is that market participants anticipated that the Committee was going to become more democratic once Greenspan departed, and hence began to pay more attention to the comments by other FOMC members.

The most provocative interpretation is that market participants anticipated that the committee was going to become more democratic once Greenspan departed, and hence began to pay more attention to the comments by other FOMC members.

He would take stands on very important issues ... that at times did not fully agree with the chairman or other committee members, but would do so in a very effective way.

The committee has been very clear about what its strategy is. It expects to continue to tighten, but it doesn't know how much farther it has to go, and those decisions will depend on the incoming data.