It is a pleasure to be here today. I will begin with the economy and the road ahead for monetary policy before briefly discussing the Federal Reserve's monetary policy independence. Over the past year, inflation has come down significantly but is still running above the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) 2 percent goal. In February, headline inflation was 2.5 percent over the past 12 months based on the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index. A year earlier, it was 5.2 percent. Core inflation, which excludes the volatile food and energy components, stood at 2.8 percent; a year ago, it was 4.8 percent. ... (full story)