And that is why I was very happy to take on, together with Finance Minister Hans Eichel, the sponsorship of this major inaugural conference of the foundation. Hans Eichel will be addressing you tonight. Good times and bad times have taught the German people the importance of stable money and a stable financial system.
Absent a more reliable guide, we typically base our projections for many commodities on the prices embedded in futures curves. 5 This is particularly true for oil and natural gas. We realize that these curves are not a very reliable forecasting tool. But we, and other forecasters, have yet to find a better alternative.