Getting up to speed...

Hello! Welcome to The Talking Fed.

My name is Marc; I'm a bit of a Fed addict.

Over the last couple years of following the Fed closely, I've come to the conclusion that there is simply no better way to get a quick but firm grasp of major macro policy issues than to read and digest Fed speeches.

So the goal here is to blog about every speech by every FOMC member, as well as selected other Fed research and data releases (all in my spare time, as this is only tangentially related to my actual job).

To get up to speed, here's a summary of Fed communications from the last few weeks:

Aug 31: Chairman Ben Bernanke on Housing, Housing Finance, and Monetary Policy at Jackson Hole.

Sept 1: Fed Governor Frederic Mishkin on Housing and the Monetary Transmission Mechanism at Jackson Hole.

Sept 5: Beige Book released.

Sept 6: St Louis Fed President Bill Poole on Jobs and Trade.

Sept 6: Fed Governor Randal Kroszner on Analyzing and Assessing Banking Crises.

Sept 6: Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher (text not yet available; Reuters has a summary).

Sept 6: Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart speech entitled After the Feast.

Sept 8: Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser on Monetary Policy and Financial Stability.

James Hamilton at Econbrowser provides and excellent summary of the Jackson Hole proceedings; William Polley and Yves Smith offer summaries and analysis of the more recent speeches.

There will be five more speeches in the coming couple days, which I'll cover here, then the usual quiet period until the Sept 18 FOMC meeting (when the real excitement begins!).