I will say that the Federal Reserve, in collaboration with the president's working group, has been closely monitoring the markets. They seem to be working well, normally.
We've also, of course, been closely monitoring the economy, looking at new data and trying to evaluate their implications for the forecast.
And my view is that taking all the new data into account that there is really no material change in our expectations for the U.S. economy since I last reported to Congress a couple of weeks ago in the Humphrey-Hawkins hearings.
...We are looking for moderate growth in the U.S. economy going forward. And I would add, parenthetically, that the downward revision of the fourth quarter GDP numbers we got this morning is actually more consistent with our overall view of the economy than were the original numbers.
...So we expect moderate growth going forward. We believe that if the housing sector begins to stabilize and if some of the inventory corrections that are still going on in manufacturing begin to be completed, that there's a reasonable possibility that we'll see some strengthening of the economy sometime during the middle of the year.
During Q&A session.