In the forecast, yes.

As I look at the forecast in the Greenbook, the higher saving rate—money out of income that’s expected to be there going into savings—is one element that makes consumption lower than it would otherwise be.

Right.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. The New England regional economy continues to grow at a moderate pace with relatively slow job growth, low unemployment, and moderating measured price trends. Consumer and business confidence is solid, and while retail contacts reported an uneven holiday season, manufacturers were generally upbeat about ...

Thank you.

Yes, you were. All kudos to you guys. Four of the simulations have slower GDP, higher unemployment, and a lower fed funds rate. In a couple of cases you had, even in the context of slower growth and higher unemployment, somewhat higher inflation. Then you have three or so that ...

You’ve got seven alternative scenarios there, if I recall correctly

I’m interested in the risks you see around the GDP growth rate in your forecast. I note a couple of things. First, some of the growth rate depends upon consumers getting the message that they really ought to be saving for the future instead of spending as they have ...

So it was an upward surprise in terms of what your model would have predicted.

Just to clarify the response—overpredicted what?

Thank you very much. I’m relatively happy with the statement. Along the lines that Presidents Yellen and Moskow discussed, I would try to stay away as much as possible from forward-looking language or commitments. There’s a time and a place—2003 going forward: Moving from 1 percent up ...

I would just like to add a comment in favor of uncertainty for the markets. Uncertainty is important in how markets work. Uncertainty is critical to market participants forming their own views about the future and managing the risks as they see them in the future. Everybody talks about the ...

My prediction is that they will stay in first place through the All-Star break. [Laughter] I think that’s safe enough.

Probably not. Okay. That’s it.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I, too, would like to thank you very much for presenting your thoughts at the beginning of this discussion. It was extremely helpful to my thinking through what comments I wanted to make at this meeting. I have also found Governor Kohn, Vice Chairman ...

Okay.

So really to home in on what we all want to see out of the projections is job number one.

Okay.

Okay. It didn’t seem to fall into this huge list of things. The plea is, Please tell us what you want us to focus on first. There’s so much stuff here that goes into the heart of every communication issue that we’ve talked about over more than ...

Will we be meeting four times a year?

That’s all right. I have one question and a plea. The question is, Have we decided about how many times we’re doing these forecasts and I just missed the decision?

This is just an intervention.

I think Governor Mishkin preceded me.

That is what I’m going to—very little money. [Laughter]

Yes. Well, at least that solves the instant problem.

That works.

We have two sentences starting exactly the same way, though. In any event, this is a nit in the overall scheme of things.

There are many ways to do it. I know that there are some objections to this, but you could say, “Despite the ongoing adjustment in the housing sector, the economy appears to have grown at a moderate pace over the first half of this year and seems likely to continue ...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, am in favor of keeping policy where it is. As I stated yesterday, I see the risks around growth as better balanced than they were, even given the potential for the housing problems to be deeper and longer-lasting than we might have expected earlier ...

Please take that out of the transcript. [Laughter]

Not always easy, I might add. [Laughter]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The pace of growth in New England, at least as measured by employment, remains below that of the nation. Indeed, since the trough of the last recession, New England’s jobs have grown at less than half the pace of the nation as a whole. Some ...

That was the general opinion.

But then they managed it so that they did come out ahead over a period of time—at least that’s my memory.

My memory of the Long-Term Capital Management situation was that the dollar amount that went into the original program that the investment banks put together when they started to manage the situation wasn’t that much bigger than the money that Bear Stearns is throwing at its hedge funds, yet ...

It has been truly an honor and an incredible experience, something I never expected to happen and a joy through the ups and downs and ins and outs of every meeting. So I thank everybody around the table who has been here and made it that way.

I take Vice Chairman Geithner’s comments very seriously, but I want to raise just one thing because I would like it to get into the survey. We were offered one way of reflecting uncertainty regarding forecasts. There might be other ways—for example, alternative scenarios, qualitative discussions of risk ...

We are fine with your proposal.

Well, that’s your proposal, right?

Against eliminating it?

I realize that when I finished my comments I was never really clear about language. After sorting through all the comments that people have made and my thoughts about those comments, I am perfectly happy with alternative B as it is written and with the “on balance” language. I do ...

Mr. Chairman?

Gosh, as usual the state of play here has gotten confused—for me, anyway. First of all, the thing I am least confused about is the policy recommendation. I do not think we should do anything at this time. I think we should stay the course at 5¼. I am ...

A quick comment was just brought to mind because of Tim’s comments. I regularly meet with a group of investment people before FOMC meetings. Compared with the past several months—particularly during the time of the last meeting, when we were just coming off some financial market upset, especially ...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Conditions in New England seem broadly supportive of the continued expansion of the region at about the pace of the nation as a whole, perhaps because the pace of national activity has slowed somewhat and so the region seems to be lagging less, though I do ...

Anecdotally, we were getting some feedback—in New England anyway—that things are starting to heat up. That’s only in relative terms, on the high-end side anyway. But who knows?

This works as an intervention as well as a question because it is exactly along the lines of President Plosser’s questions. First, the assumption about inventory and where is normal—the past ten years through the housing boom have created a normality, if you will, of very low inventories ...

Not an intervention. A question.

So moved.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I suppose it comes as no surprise to anybody who has been at the table here listening to these discussions over the past—it seems like forever but I guess it has been only a couple of years [laughter]—that I’m not in favor of ...