Throughout the postwar history of the UK economy, policy-makers have had to strike a balance between the impact of the external value of the currency on the competitiveness of exports and its potential effect on inflation through import costs and the pricing climate. In my view, we have allowed the pound to depreciate more than is necessary or desirable to support the growth of manufacturing and exports. For example, allowing sterling to rise by about 10% from its current level against the euro £ = € would still leave it at a relatively competitive level by historical standards £ = € The very significant fall in sterling from mid-2007 to early 2009 probably helped to support manufacturing industry and exports and hence stabilise the economy in the depths of the recession. But now the world economy is recovering, exports and manufacturing activity are being strongly boosted by the growth of world trade. Meanwhile, worries about deflation have been replaced by the concern that the UK economy now faces a sustained period of relatively high inflation which is endangering our track record of price stability. In these circumstances, our approach to the value of sterling needs to strike a different balance from the view we took in the depths of recession.
William C Dudley: A preliminary assessment of the TALF Remarks by Mr William C Dudley, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and Pension Real Estate Association's Public-Private Investment Program Summit, New York, 4 June 2009. *  *  *  I thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today about what we at the Federal Reserve have been doing to improve market function and credit market access. Since August of 2007, the Fed has introduced a wide range of special facilities designed to improve market functioning, increase the availability of credit and bring down borrowing costs for households and businesses. Today, I am going to focus my comments on the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), which in my view is one of our most innovative programs. This facility is a complement to the Public-Private Investment Program efforts being undertaken by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Treasury, which are the primary focus of today’s conference. In what follows, I would remind you that my comments reflect my own views and opinions and not necessarily those of the Federal Open Market Committee or the Federal Reserve System. I will discuss how the securitization markets broke down last fall creating the need for TALF, how the TALF works and what it already has accomplished, where we see it evolving going forward, and finally, some preliminary thoughts on the future of securitization markets.