2007

You Earn What You Learn
Delivered to the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce Seventh Annual Real Estate Symposium
Dallas, Texas
September 24, 2007
"The vital capital stock of our modern economy is not our buildings or our factories or our farms. It is our brains. It is our ability to conjure new and better ideas, inventions and solutions. It is our commitment to exceptional customer service. It is our designs for better buildings, faster computers and more successful space flights."

The U.S., Mexican and Border Economies
Remarks before a Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Community Luncheon
Laredo, Texas
September 10, 2007
Speech in Spanish
"It is fair to say that I am encouraged by what I have heard against a background of constant negative speculation and the occasional discordant note, such as last week's employment numbers. Our economy appears to be weathering the storm thus far. The future path of that storm and the appropriate policy course, however, are still to be determined."

Higher Education in Texas
Remarks to the Rotary Club of Dallas
Dallas, Texas
June 13, 2007
"Economists may quibble about widgets and whatnot, but they are united on this: Education pays off. There's an irrefutable positive link between education and income. We see it across countries, between individuals, in America's progress over time and when comparing states. "

Remarks to the Headliners Club
Austin, Texas
February 27, 2007
"Last year, employment grew twice as fast in Texas as it did in the rest of the United States. Construction payrolls grew at five times the U.S. rate. We added 26,000 net new factory jobs in 2006, while the nation's manufacturers posted an overall loss of 110,300 jobs. The energy sector grew its workforce by over 13 percent, well outpacing the rest of the country's 7.5 percent rate. Our energy sector still only employs about 2 percent of our workforce. Texas excels at the high-value-added end of the equation: Our output per worker in computers and electronics has overtaken California's."

Brief Comments on the Economy and the Business of the Dallas Fed
Remarks before the Park Cities Rotary Club
Dallas, Texas
February 9, 2007
"At this early juncture in 2007, I think it entirely reasonable to expect the economy to maintain an average pace of 3 percent growth for the year. And, if we at the Fed do our job well, we should be able to accommodate that growth rate while bringing inflation down below 2 percent."

2006

The Current State of the U.S. and Mexican Economies: Where Do We Go From Here?
Remarks at a Policy Forum hosted by the El Paso Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and Monterrey Branch of the Banco de México
Monterrey, N.L., México
September 25, 2006
Speech in Spanish
"As I sit at the FOMC table, I continue to fret more about inflation than I do about growth. While I am well aware of the risks to economic growth, the history of inverted yield curves, and the ever present possibility of exogenous shocks in a politically hazardous world, the “balance of risk,” in my book, is still tilted to the inflation side of the equation."

A Primer on Inflation (with Comments on Real Estate in the Metroplex)
Remarks at the 6th Annual Real Estate Symposium, North Dallas Chamber of Commerce
Dallas, Texas
August 30, 2006
"Our current analysis points to an economy at a crossroads. High energy prices, rising interest rates and the slowdown in a red-hot housing market have taken some of the steam out of what had been a fairly robust expansion. At the same time, our current inflation indicators are not presently as well behaved as I would like them to be. Central bankers are always concerned when inflation starts to rear its ugly head. We know from experience that once inflation gains momentum, it becomes harder and harder to stop." 

The Federal Reserve and Texas
Remarks at a Community Luncheon Hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
San Antonio, Texas
August 29, 2006
"The business of getting it right on inflation is not an easy task. I keep a close eye on all of the inflation measures—especially now, when high energy prices and utility bills are putting pressure on many businesses to raise prices. But I put extra weight on the Trimmed Mean PCE Deflator because I believe it provides a more realistic picture of the price pressures in the economy and more accurately measures what conditions the operations of our economy."  

2005

Globalization and Texas
Remarks before The Houston Forum
Houston, Texas
October 19, 2005
"We have millions of managers in our business community who have become experts at adapting to economic change with breathtaking alacrity. I am talking not just about CEOs but also about middle managers who operate supply chains, control inventories and fine-tune operations in our mighty economic machine. They are an important reason we have succeeded in growing our economy while others—great nations like Japan and Germany—had been stagnant, at least until adopting recent market-oriented reforms."

Contemplating the Nature of Money and the Capillaries of Capitalism
Remarks Before Downtown Waco Inc.
Waco, Texas
October 6, 2005
"Money flows are an economy's lifeblood, and the Federal Reserve's great responsibility lies in maintaining the cardiovascular system of American capitalism. The Federal Reserve's factory operations—from payments processing to bank regulation to the New York desk's trading activities—keep open the arteries, veins and even the capillaries of capitalism. We cannot let the equivalent of sclerosis block the arteries and disrupt the workings of the circulatory system. Nor can we let the inflation virus infect the blood supply and poison the system."

A Perspective on the Economic Outlook
Remarks before the Seventh Annual Economic Forum of the Greater Dallas Chamber
Dallas, Texas
October 4, 2005
"We heard that the pace of economic growth had begun to slow slightly prior to Katrina and that the disruptions from Katrina, and later from Rita, would initially slow growth a bit more. The U.S. economy grew at a 3.3 percent annual rate in the second quarter. Now, most forecasters anticipate growth closer to 3 percent in the fourth quarter. Many of them expect the bounce back from rebuilding the Gulf Coast to begin in early 2006, though the impact will be spread over several years. In the past, this pattern has repeated itself for a wide range of shocks and natural disasters. The one common element has been the resilience and flexibility of our free market economy."

An Overview of Banking, and the U.S. and Texas Economies
Remarks before the Texas Department of Banking Staff Conference
Saluting Texas Bank Examiners’ 100th Anniversary
Austin, Texas
September 12, 2005
"While Katrina's damage to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama is massive, the first-tier macroeconomic hit to the overall economy will be less so. Early estimates are notoriously unreliable. What's more, we tend to underestimate the inventiveness and cleverness of people and markets to respond to adversity."