Over the past two years, our nation, indeed the world, has endured the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression, a crisis which in turn triggered a sharp contraction in global economic activity. Today, most indicators suggest that financial markets are stabilizing and that the economy is emerging from the recession. Yet our task is far from complete.
Because we are such a large and geographically separated Committee, the FOMC, unlike the MPC, does not attempt to arrive at a common forecast, and the dispersion of individual forecasts illustrates the range of views.