Summary: I am pleased to be with you here today to discuss my views on the economic outlook. 1 When this date was arranged many months ago, I was looking forward to delivering my remarks during the sleepy dog days of summer. Instead, we meet during fairly tumultuous times in financial markets. Over the last several weeks, we have seen substantial revisions in market participants' assessments of the fundamental value of securities related to sub-prime and other non-standard mortgages, financial distress related to mortgage finance at several entities, considerable widening of credit spreads, and significantly larger swings in asset prices. This turbulence makes assessing the economic outlook more challenging than usual, and of course makes central bank policymaking especially challenging.
