2010 Fed transcripts have some lighter moments
The WSJ details the lighter side of the Fed discussions.
These are the best two exchanges in a year of meetings. Needless to say, a two-day Fed meeting falls distinctly on the 'dry' side.
The Fed's top international economist, Nathan Sheets, summed up the state of Greece by noting its "apparent slide from advanced economy to emerging market status" during its crisis:
CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. If a country goes from advanced status to emerging market, is that a submerging market? [Laughter]
The economic overview brings us back to Fed Funnyman David Stockton:
CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. Terrific. Anything else? [No response.] All right, we can now turn to the second agenda item, the economic situation, and turn to Dave Stockton and Nathan Sheets to give us the overview.
MR. STOCKTON. Those of you who monitor postings on SDS probably noticed that soon after we published the Greenbook last week, I was forced to issue a corrected version. Inadvertently, some of the dates in the headers had not been changed from the March publication date. Normally, I wouldn't submit myself to that ritual humiliation for something as seemingly trivial as header dates. But I was concerned that some of you may have thought we were simply resubmitting the March Greenbook [laughter] so that we could do nothing this round. Given how little our forecast has changed since last summer, I'll admit that this has become an increasing temptation. But being good government bureaucrats, I can assure you that we spent considerable time, energy, and resources to do nothing [laughter].
