Balancing Inflation and Growth Part 12 of 13

As a result, trade in services is one of the most rapidly growing components of global trade. Thus, even the available supply of architects or petroleum engineers or software designers or medical technicians or lawyers or commodity trading broker must increasingly be considered in the context of global rather than domestic demand.

The point is that, at present, we simply do not have the ability to adequately account for the impact globalization has on the gearing commodity trading account of our domestic economy. Absent that capacity, we cannot, in my opinion, confidently assume that slower U.S. economic growth will quell U.S. inflation and, more important, keep inflationary expectations anchored. Containing inflation is the purpose of the ship I crew for, and if a temporary economic slowdown is what we must endure while we achieve that purpose, then it is, in my opinion, a burden we must bear, however politically inconvenient.

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Balancing Inflation and Growth Part 2 of 13

When I finished, Alan looked down the table and said, President Fisher, was that Henry V? Yes, Mr. Chairman, I replied. I know Ive reached retirement age, said the ancient chairman. I went to high school with that guy.

Would that we could today enjoy commodity trading courses such levity from the days when SIVs, CDOs, ARS and SLARS and VRDOsor the R or the S words, as in recession and stagflation were not yet part of the polite lexicon of monetary circles. These are not the happiest of times. These are, to put it euphemistically, challenging times for central bankers. We are confronted with the twin evils of slower growth and higher inflation, while also having to fight a banging hangover that resulted from allowing financial intermediaries to party on too hard for too long.

The monetary policy and regulatory frameworks that commodity future trading system appeared to serve us so well in past decades are being stress-tested in ways that few dared imagine during that bucolic period when many were lulled into assuming things would be forever NICE, as Mervyn King so memorably put it. We know now that a Non-Inflationary Consistent Expansion is not the steady state of nature. Neither is the Great Moderation of both the economy and financial market volatility.

Financing

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