, Columnist
The Right Questions to Ask at Fed Press Conferences
The best queries are framed in terms of how monetary policy will respond to different shocks.
Jerome Powell hasn't heard these questions before.
Photographer: Chip SomodevillaThis article is for subscribers only.
Given the chance to question the chair of the Federal Reserve, politicians and journalists often waste the opportunity. Too often they ask questions that are easy to sidestep. For example, central bankers love questions on productivity because they can say it is a good thing and that lawmakers ought to do something about it because it is not the central bank’s mandate, so they can't affect it very much. You may as well ask central bankers about their views on daylight saving time.
Nor can you ask central bankers what policy they will follow, because they will always reference published projections that rarely change, with a big "it depends" tacked on at the end of their answers.