Mary Daly

But one of the things that I think may be underestimated in public about what the Fed does is we're regularly relying on government-provided data.

That's the gold standard of data in the world.

We're also relying on private sector surveys, which have been collected for many, many years.

And we can correlate them with the government-collected data over time and know exactly how they relate to one another.

And then, of course, there's really no replacement, especially at inflection points in the economy, for talking to businesses, workers, communities, and consumers, asking people what they're really doing.

And then, you know I like to do this, go to the parking lots of your favorite retail stores and look at how many cars are in the parking lot and what people are buying.

That tells you a lot.

You know, airports are full, people are out there.

You can go to a sporting event or a concert, see how many people are there.

What you see is an economy that is slower than it was.

Consumers that are not, they're more picky about what they spend on, but they're still out there participating in the economy.

And that's how we get the information we need to make the right decisions that are according to our mandates, but mostly for the American people.

You know, of course.

I mean, if you look at the transcripts and the meeting minutes, it's helpful to go back and look at the 1990s debates and go back and look at the commentary around the 1970s.

It is a misnomer to think people always agree.

The right way to think about it, in my judgment, this has been my experience, is that the debate we have, I wouldn't even call it division.

I would call it differences of opinion that are really healthy in a debate about trying to make policy in an uncertain time with no...

truth.

We don't have truth.

We have forecasts.