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[ Silence ]
[ Inaudible ]
Sara Messina: Good morning everyone and welcome
to the 2010 College Fed Challenge National Finals.
It's our very great pleasure to host you today and also I am pleased that our Vice Chair
of the Federal Reserve Board, Janet Yellen, who's just recently come to the Board
after having formerly served as the President of the San Francisco Fed.
Thank you so much for being with us and she's going to say a few words of welcome.
[applause]
Janet Yellen: Well good morning everybody.
It's really a pleasure for me to have the chance to welcome you to the Federal Reserve Board
for the 7th annual College Fed Challenge.
I really want to congratulate you on your success in the regional competitions
and for all the hard work I know you've done in preparing for today.
You know, of course, that the goal of Fed Challenge is for students like yourselves
to learn more about the Federal Reserve and the inner workings
of the Federal Open Market Committee and of course to deepen your knowledge
of macroeconomics and monetary policy more generally.
Today we have five teams from Bentley University, Lafayette College,
Northwestern University, Rutgers University, Newark and Virginia Commonwealth.
You're competing in this room where our actual Federal Open Market Committee meets regularly.
And I think you know that the, what the FOMC does when it meets is to assess global economic
and financial developments and to try to better understand the landscape and then to go
on to try to determine the appropriate stance of monetary policy.
And today I think you're going to get a very good sense of what it's like to be
in my shoes, to be in our shoes, on FOMC day.
I know you're up to the challenge and I do have to say it is a challenge,
especially recently it's been a tremendous challenge, for those of us on the FOMC,
to figure out what the right thing is to do.
We've certainly had lively debates around this table and I suspect you will as well.
I wish I could stay all morning and listen to your thoughts on monetary policy,
you know it's really been a very interesting time
and I think an important time for you to participate.
I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome our distinguished judges,
Alexander Olbrecht who's Executive Director of the Eastern Economic Association,
Stacey Tevlin who is Chief of Macroeconomic Analysis here at the Federal Reserve Board
and Roy Webb who's Senior Economist and Research Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
I want to thank all of you for being here
and appreciate your support of this terrific program.
Lastly, I'd like to extend my thanks to the professors who've been involved in this,
for your support and the work you have done to prepare the students for today.
And I want to thank the Federal Reserve Economic Education Specialists for all of their efforts
in coordinating this competition.
So I wish you all success.
I know you'll have a spirited competition.
I congratulate you on a job very well done and very good, best of luck to all of you.
[applause]
[silence]