*** Thanks to the Money Marketeers for inviting me to share my perspective on the conduct of monetary policy in the current environment of unacceptably high inflation. It is a pleasure to be here with you this evening. I will focus my remarks today on the use of explicit forward guidance as a tool for monetary policy.
1 Before I start, let me briefly discuss near-term monetary policy. You likely already know that I have fully supported the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) decisions over the past several meetings. Those decisions were to increase the target range for the federal funds rate in 75 basis point increments, and the federal funds rate now stands at 3 to 3-1/4 percent.