> appointments to
>the Fed's board of governors "due regard to a fair representation of
>the financial, agricultural, industrial, and commercial interests" of
>the country and its regions. The Fed, according to law, is also
>supposed to make policy "to promote effectively the goals of maximum
>employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates."
The Fed seems to have been rather successful. How much of that is due to the hegemonic position of the US economy?
It is interesting how the central bank adjustment systems have moved away from simplistic monetarist rules about watching M1 or M3 or some variant of these, and use instead a very public reading of sentiment in an open feedback system with the minimum number of surprises. That might be as scientific as anything else.
Chris Burford
London