Good morning. I represent the 12th Federal Reserve District, and that covers a lot of territory—in fact over a third of the country. An important part of my job is to travel across the western United States, meeting with people and getting grassroots information about how the economy is doing. But, I’ll admit that once in a while it’s nice to give a speech closer to home and be able to sleep in my own bed tonight. That is to say, it’s a pleasure to be here today. I’m going to talk about where I see the U.S. economy going and what that means for monetary policy. In addition to the usual reading of the tea leaves about ... (full story)