The Iraq War Is Largely About Oil.

These Days, Even Out Of Office, I Still Read Economic Reports.

We Cannot Rule Out A Situation In Which A Preemptive Policy Tightening Becomes Necessary, ... Such Caution Seems Especially Warranted With Regard To The Sharp Rise In Equity Prices During The Past Two Years. These Gains Have Obviously Raised Questions Of Sustainability.

The Free Lunch Has Still To Be Invented.

This Decade Is Strewn With Examples Of Bright People Who Thought They Built A Better Mousetrap That Could Consistently Extract Abnormal Returns From The Financial Markets. Some Succeed For A Time. But While There May Occasionally Be Mis-configurations Among Market Prices That Allow Abnormal Returns, They Do Not Persist.

Given Our Inevitably Incomplete Knowledge About Key Structural Aspects Of Our Ever-changing Economy And The Sometimes Asymmetric Costs Or Benefits Of Particular Outcomes, A Central Bank... Need To Consider Not Only The Most Likely Future Path For The Economy But Also The Distribution Of Possible Outcomes About That Path. They Then Need To Reach A Judgment About The Probabilities, Costs, And Benefits Of The Various Possible Outcomes Under Alternative Choices For Policy.