Kevin Hassett

And we wrote a paper on the economic impact of the BTU tax.

And it was really, I think, the first paper in the economic literature that also we said, well, we're doing the BTU tax.

We should do a carbon tax, too.

So we had the economic effects of a carbon tax and a BTU tax.

And so we had this paper, really good paper I thought, but you had to go through the review process at the Fed.

And Chairman Greenspan ordered us not to publish the paper.

He said that right now President Clinton has said that there's going to be a BTU tax and we can't have the Fed looking like it's putting its finger on a scale.

What's a political debate about the BTU tax?

And so sure, it's a great paper, but the Fed's not going to publish it until debate has finished on this topic.

And then like maybe nine months later, the BTU tax failed in Congress and then

He said, well, it's OK.

You can publish your paper now.

And we subsequently got it published to the top peer-reviewed journals, but cited a million times.

But I think very fondly of that story, because I think that that's what it means.

That's how much you have to pay attention to independence.

And so if you're thinking about things that could improve with the current Fed, it feels like first there's way more communication than there was when Greenspan was there.

It seems like everybody's out giving a talk every day, but they're giving talks about things that are relevant for what Congress is deciding today in ways that basically are not necessarily relevant for monetary policy.

And I think that Greenspan's approach is a superior one.

No, that was something else.

He very often would want to communicate things and you understood what he was saying.