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To: reaper who wrote (203650)	11/8/2002 10:30:29 PM
From: Tommaso	Respond to of 436258

He said that in the 1990s excessive money creation had allowed a bubble to develop, though he seems to feel that the Fed really cannot control excesses of optimism and pessimism. He does not think that deflation is likley or even possible. I hope a transcript becomes available because there was a lot of give-and-take between him and the panelists so that I find it hard to summarize more than that. He favors more control of exchange rates, apparently feeling that these floating rates leave it all in the hands of speculators or at the mercy of trends and psychological reaction. I guess I meant that in general, he seems to feel that a lot of things are badly out of line, though he is clearly not disposed to sound any alarms very loudly. He does not seem to favor completely separating the accounting profession from those who pay them to do the accounting. What he managed to convey (to me, anyway) was a good many reservations about recent fed policy without ever even mentioning the name of Greenspan. But I did not take notes and am not an experienced financial reporter, so let's hope for a verbatim transcript so we can all judge for ourselves.

To: reaper who wrote (203650)	11/9/2002 1:37:41 AM
From: patron_anejo_por_favor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

Tommaso summarized most of it...he answered a question regarding the Fed's moves and how they will impact the dollar by saying that the Fed (and government in general, I assumed he was referring to O'Neill here) should be more concerned with establishing stability of the dollar, even to the point of saying they are concerned about it publically and perhaps outlining a specific target range for it. He categorically stated he thought deflation was not present nor a concern. He strongly felt that Chairman and CEO positions should not be shared, derided the corrosive effect of the "imperial CEO" on corporate governance. He strongly opposes awarding stock options to management, stated it creates a "perverse incentive" to use abusive tactics to prop stock prices short term, often at the expense of the long term well being of the company and it's shareholders. He cited companies not paying out divvies and using cash flow to buy back stock as just one example. He avoided directly criticizing BubbleBoy, though I felt he was concerned that the rate cuts had gone too far and that inflation was indeed a risk as a result. He mentioned that when he was a graduate student, the argument that "a little inflation is good for the economy" was bandied about often, ultimately resulting in the inflationary bonfire (that he was charged with extinguishing years later). Throughout he was jovial and humble, perhaps the exact antithesis of Sir Prints-a-Lot. Oh yeah, he also said he isn't interested in the SEC Chairman's job.