Inflation Required For Federal Reserve Presentation

It’s not incumbent on a central banker to make his presentations interesting, riveting or at all fascinating. And it seems that James Bullard the President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is toeing the party line for all central bankers. Well, that seems to be the case for the latest Federal Reserve presentation.

Federal Reserve Presentation

His latest presentation was to the 2011 European Banking and Financial Forum in Prague today, 29th March 2011. And, of course, it was a timely reminder of the tedious PowerPoint presentations too often served up by central bankers…European and American. Not too dissimilar from the Jean-Claude Trichet Euro speech.

This was a tedious presentation made worse by the bullet list approach taken to the explanation of quantitative easing (QE) and inflationary effects. Both could benefit from a more digestible explanation. The fact that neither benefited from such an explanation was a pity.

Perhaps we should have sensed the worst when we read the title for his presentation…”U.S. Monetary Policy: Recent Developments.” As an explanation of the subject matter it’s faultless. As an indicator of value, worth, meaning, relevance or inherent value for an audience member it’s meaningless. Because there’s so much more to your title with the right presentation title.

There’s a sense that the primary purpose of this presentation was as a printed record. Something to be given to the presenter’s audience as a take-away item…a white paper, if you like. Of course, the abundance of copy on each slide reinforces that view.

If true, and there really is no way of knowing just yet, it fails as a white paper. Neither riveting informative presentation nor serious, factual white paper.

Hopeful Or Hopeless Presentation?

Is there hope for this presentation? Probably not. More than inflation, it required resuscitation. Just fewer words, not more. More pictures, images, graphs and digestible figures.