BIS central bankers’ speeches  9  The future of FOMC communications The fact that simple rules aren’t as useful in current circumstances as they would be for the FOMC at other times poses a significant challenge for FOMC communications, especially since private-sector Fed watchers have frequently relied on such rules to understand and predict the Committee’s decisions on the federal funds rate.
22 In particular, private-sector forecasters commonly use such rules to revise their expectations concerning the path of the federal funds rate in response to news that alters their views concerning the outlook for the economy. Now, however, the federal funds rate may well diverge for a number of years from the prescriptions of simple rules.