To: ahhaha who wrote (3254 ) 10/22/2001 4:20:33 PM From: ahhaha Read Replies (1) | Respond to Just when you thought he was ok...Greenspan Says Price Target Wouldn't Help Fed Policy Some analysts, including Fed Governor Laurence Meyer, have advocated inflation targeting as a way to restrain inflation expectations and promote open decision-making at the Fed. ``A specific numerical inflation target would represent an unhelpful and false precision,'' Greenspan told a monetary policy conference sponsored by the St. Louis Fed Bank. Greenspan disagreed, offering his own, long-held view that ``price stability is best thought of as an environment in which inflation is so low and stable over time that it does not materially enter in the decisions of households and firms.'' `Complex' Economy A policy ``rule,'' which would allow Fed officials to plug in economic variables and know what to do with interest rates, would be helpful, Greenspan said. ``I hope that someday we can find a reasonable mechanical rule or a reasonably mechanical way in which we can conduct policy. I haven't found it yet,'' he said. The problem is, no one has yet devised a rule that doesn't depend on opinion in its application, he said. ``Like anything else it involves a forecast, and forecasts are just that, they are projections into the unknown,'' he said. ``Regrettably, what we do at the moment is essentially the least-worst way of going about it.''
