Summary: Let me begin by telling you about some recent experiences. I had the opportunity earlier this year to guest-teach a couple of business school economics classes. I opened my discussions with a pair of questions, asking students to put themselves in the place of a monetary policymaker choosing a target for the federal funds rate. First I gave them a set of hypothetical facts about the state of the economy: a slowdown in housing in the wake of multi-year housing boom; rising mortgage default rates; preliminary indicators of a slowing in business investment. And then I asked them: "What are you going to do?" The students dutifully responded that this situation could call for a reduction in the funds rate. They'd obviously been doing their homework.
