As the world prepares to comprehend [3], in their own recency-biased manner, the minutes of the most recent FOMC meeting, we thought it worth a reminder of just how Fed communications have ballooned in the past 20 years. The first statement, issued on Feb. 4, 1994, was a mere 99 words. December's 'most important FOMC statement ever' was a stunning (record) 867 words - and even so Jon Hilsenrath managed to interpret and write on it in 3 minutes [4]. As we noted earlier [3], the minutes tend to be a platform for even greater 'communication' - and notably are not the actual minutes of the meeting but a prepared annotation of what the Fed wants the public to know about the meeting. Transparency and communications, it would appear, has been transformed from clarifying to endless caveat-ing.
Since 1994... notice the 'kink' when unconventional policy began
[5]
and it's just gotten worse and worse as QEternity was launched.
[6]
All those words just to say - we'll buy it all forever...