The New York Times reports that the Fed will release transcripts from several policy meetings in 2008 today. The transcripts are overdue but it will be very interesting to hear comments as the crisis was brewing and happening.
The 14 transcripts the Fed is to publish Friday are from eight scheduled meetings and six emergency meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets the Fed’s monetary policy, including the level of short-term rates. The transcripts will not include other meetings at which smaller groups of Fed officials, working with the Treasury Department, plotted the bailouts of Bear Stearns, the American International Group, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — and reached the fateful conclusion that Lehman Brothers could not be saved.
Not market-moving but certainly interesting.
