Remarks on the Economy and Monetary Policy

It is a pleasure to be back with you once again. I'm truly honored that you invite me back so frequently, although I'm reminded of something that Jack Benny said once when he received an award of some sort. (I assume there are at least a few people in this audience old enough to remember who Jack Benny was.) When he received the award, Benny said he didn't deserve the honor, but then he had arthritis, and he didn't deserve that either. I know you didn't invite me back to hear a bunch of bad jokes, so let me share a few thoughts about the economy and the economic outlook. I will follow my usual format that you are well accustomed to. I'll start with a little background information on the economy and try to specify as precisely as I can where the economy stands right now. Here I will repeat a few things I said in a series of talks I gave about a month ago, since the background obviously has not changed much since then, but I will also update this part with a few observations about developments over the last several weeks. Then I'll speculate a little about the outlook, and finally wind up with a few remarks about Fed policy.