guarantee $1 billion in loan guarantees and yet a new bill was introduced friday as we do this interview. how is this bill that the house will take up any different from what they passed? move thingsto closer between the chambers. talks about different types of aid through different u.s. agencies and european bank reconstruction. what is essentially happening is that the senate bill, which the chamber will take a boat to proceed on, also has restructuring of aid to the international monetary fund that could help ukraine. andblicans in the chamber house republicans disagree. they think that's extraneous provision to be done another time. they are backing a narrower version. the house foreign affairs chairman and his ranking member rolled up this bill today that could provide a point of compromise. >> how do any of the congress

sanctions fit in with what the white house has done over the past week? >> they anticipate adding some names. the thinking here is to go after the people who are financing putin and you are really the moneybags in the eyes of the congress. it would add on to what the administration has already done. there were a couple of rounds of sanctions this past week and the russians retaliated, slapping sanctions on members of congress and white house officials. congress is getting in the game along with white house. >> we heard from the majority leader before they left, this'll be the first thing to take up when they come back on monday. we also heard word about a deal that has been done on the extensive -- extension of uninsurance benefits. what's ahead with that? >> there have been will pull attempts to renew this jobless aid that expired in december. this latest deal has the support

of five senate republicans. you get 55 members of the democratic caucus and you might be able to advance it. what it would do is essentially renewed the unemployment insurance and require long-term recipients to get job training and other steps. the problem is that the house republicans are quite hostile to this approach. john boehner says after a three-month interruption, there would be an administrative nightmare. he implied that. in getting the eligibility figured out. they say they would rather focus on measures that create jobs rather than redoing what in their view has been economic assistance. >> the effort on unemployment is just part of the democrat's efforts to renew their economic agenda. what did he mean by that? >> stepsis a right of

that the democrats hopes to showcase this month to highlight income inequality. steps such as increasing the minimum wage. out ofs they stumbled the gate and are pushing these things back further and further and now, international events may be overtaking that as well. their staunch republican opposition to these measures because of the issue of pay for. everything has to be paid for. offsetting cuts elsewhere in the budget. it's hard to get republicans and democrats to agree on all this. the house and senate are facing a deadline. is there another short-term measure had? is there any possibility that they will get a long-term measure passed the act ou? a 24% cut in medicare reimbursement to physicians. almost an annual exercise here in washington.

long-term, they would like to replace the formula that dictates these cuts. they have had little success in figuring out a way to offset the cost of doing so. what they would like to do is maybe do a nine-month patch. you have to find a way for paying for that. it's kicking the can down the road. that is increasingly looking like what they may do. senior editor with cq roll call. you can follow him on twitter. read his reporting at cq rollcall.com. thanks for your time. 2:00 onenate is in monday eastern time. a vote on whether to begin aid.e on ukrainian mondayse will be in on at 12:00 beginning legislative business at 2:00.

allowation to individuals to make tax-deductible donations through april 15 of this year. they will be taking boats in the house after 6:30. a look at the presidents week i had. he is leaving sunday night for a five-day trip to europe and the middle east. on monday, he will be in the netherlands. they will be meeting for a today summit. nuclear >> c-span., the 435 years, bringing public affairs event from washington directly to you. withng you in the room congressional hearings come white house event, briefings and conferences. and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house, all as a part of public service to private

industry. we are c-span. created by that cable tv industry 35 years ago and brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. watch us in hd, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. if time magazine has been around in 1864, who would have been chosen person of the year? your callstaking live today on american history tv starting at 1:00 eastern time. we will be answering questions about the civil war and why he nominated general sherman as person of the year. you can watch that and call in over companion network, c-span3. here on c-span, federal reserve chair janet yellen held her first news conference. she talked about unemployment and her views about wind comes to raising interest rates. she spoke for about one hour.

>> good afternoon. i'm pleased to join you for the first fomc press conferences. like chairman bernanke before me, i appreciate the opportunity at this press conferences afford to explain the decisions of the fomc and respond to your questions. the market committee concluded a two day meeting earlier today. as you already know from our statement, the committee decided to make another modest reduction in the pace of its purchases of longer term securities. the committee also updated its guidance regarding the likely future path of the short term interest rates. as i'll explain we're fully in the moment, this change in our guidance does not educate any -- indicate any change in committee policy intention as set forth in

this recent statement. rather the changes meant clarify how the committee anticipates policy evolving after the unemployment rate declined below 6.5%. let me explain the check outlook that underlies these actions. despite some softer recent data, the fluencies outlook towards continues progress toward our goal of maximum employment and inflation returning to 2%, remains broadly unchanged. unusually harsh weather in january and february, has made assessing the underlying strength of the economy especially challenging. broadly speaking, however, the spending and production data will somewhat weaker than we had expected in january on roughly

in line with our expectations as of december. the last time committee participants submitted economic projections. in contrast, market conditions have continued to improve. the unemployment rate at 6.7% is three tenth lower than the data available at the time of the december meeting. further, broader measures of unemployment such as the u6 measure, which includes marginally works and those working part time but preferring full time work, have fallen even more than they had lined unemployment rate over this period. labor force participation has picked up. while the committee continues to monitor developments in global financial markets caps late, financial conditions remain

broadly consent with the fluency objective. inflation has continued to run below the committee's two percent objective. given longer term inflation expectations appear to be well anchored and in light of the ongoing recovery in the united states and many economies around the world, the of a fluency continues to expect inflation to move gradually back. the committee is mindful inflation running consistently below its objective can pose risk to economic performance. the committee also recognizes, however, the policy actions tend to exert pressure on application

that -- inflation that have manifest over time. the affluency will continue to monitor data. this outlook is reflected in the individual economic projection submitted in conjunction with this meeting by the 16 affluency participants, four board members and 12 reserve bank presidents. as always, each participant's projections are conditioned on his or her own view of appropriate monetary policy. the central tendency of the unemployment rate projections has shifted down by a about two tenths sense december. now stands between 6.1 and 6.3 percent at the end of this

year. the unemployment rate is projected to reach normal leonie level -- normal level by the end of 2016. the real gdp growth stands at 2.8 to 3 percent for 2014. it remains somewhat of above that of the estimate longer run normal growth through 2016. meanwhile, as i noted, affluency participants continue to see inflation moving only gradually back towards two percent over time as the economy expands. the central tendency of the inflation projections is 1.5 to 1.6% in 2014 rising to 1.7 to 2. 0% in 2016. let me now return towards a

decision to make another measured reduction in the pace of asset purchases. starting next month, we will be purchasing $55 billion of securities per month. down $10 billion per month from our current rate. even after today's action takes effect, we will continue to significantly expand our holdings of longer term security. we will also continue to roll over ensuring treasury securities and reinvest principle payments from the affluency holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage backed securities and agency mortgage backed securities. the sizeable and still increasing holdings will continue to put downward pressure on longer term interest rates. support mortgage markets and make financial conditions more accommodative helping support job creation and return of

inflation to the committee's objective. as before, if incoming information broadly supports the committee's expectation of ongoing improvement in labor market and inflation moving back over time, the committee will likely continue to reduce the pace of asset purchases in measured steps in future meetings. however purchases are not on a preset course and the committee's decisions that the pace of purchases remain contingent on outlook of jobs.

the new guys does not indicate any change in the policy intention of the fomc. instead reflect changes in the conditions we face. let me explain this more fully. in december 2012, the committee first stated its guidance in terms of economic thresholds. stipulating that the current low range for the federal funds rate target would be appropriate at least as long as the unemployment rate remains above 6.5%. inflation is projected to be no more than a half percentage point above our longer run goal and longer term inflation expectations remain anchored. sense that time, progress in the

labor market has been more rapid than we had anticipated. while inflation has been lower than the committee had expected. although the thresholds served well as a useful guide to policy over the past year, last december affluency judge appropriate to update that guidance. noting that the current target range will likely be maintained well past the teemment unemployment rate climbs below 6.5%. today, the committee is further revised its forward guidance to better reflect conditions as they now stand and are likely to evolve over coming quarters. the revised formulation starts with a general description of

the factors that drive affluency decision-making. then provides the affluency's current assessment of what those factors will likely imply for the future path of short term interest rates. in particular, the committee states that in determining how long to maintain the current zero to one quarter percent federal fund rate, it will assess progress towards its objectives of maximum employment and two percent inflation. in short, the larger the shortfall of employment or inflation from the respective objective set by the fomc and the longer any such shortfall is expected to persist, the longer the target federal funds rate is likely to remain in the present zero to one quarter percent

range. the affluency will base its ongoing settlement on a wide rake of information including measures of labor market conditions, indicators of inflation pressures and inflation expectations on readings on financial developments. as i've noted the assessment of those factors is consistent with the characterization provided in previous forward guidance. the committee continues to anticipate the conditions will likely warrant maintaining the current range to the federal funds rate for a considerable time after the acid purchase program ends.

the affluency also sum limited its guidance pertaining to the period after the asset program ends and the initial increase in the federal funds rate target has occurred. the statement continues to note that in deciding on the pace for removing accommodationings, the committee will take a balanced approach obtaining its objectives. the statement now adds the committee's current anticipation, even after employment and inflation are near mandate consistent levels, economic conditions may for some time, warrant keeping short term interest rates below levels the committee use as normal in the longer run. this guidance is consistent with the task for appropriate policy as reported in the participant's

projections. which showed the federal funds rate for most participants remaining well below longer run normal values at the end of 2016. although affluency participants provide a number of explanations for the federal funds rate, remaining below its longer run normal level, many cite the impacts of the financial crises and some note that the potential growth rate of the economy may be lower at least for a time. in summary, the committee's actions today reflected its assessment, the progress in the labor market is continuing but much remains to be done on both the jobs and inflation front. unemployment is still elevated. underemployment and long term unemployment remains significant concerns and inflation is

running significantly below the affluency's objective. these conditions warrant the continuation of highly accommodative policy reflected in today's policy statement. the federal reserve's interest rate guidance and its substantial still increasing holdings of longer term securities will ensure that monetary policy remains highly accommodative promoting the affluency objectives of maximum employment and price. thank you. i'll be glad to take your questions. >> madam chair. associated press. could you give us inside how the decision was made on dropping

6.5% numerical target in the forward guidance. was there any concern expressed that there's been criticism on forward guidance, that it's confusing markets not helping them in some ways. perhaps it would have been better to go to just a lower target, say 6%. could also address the concerns raised in the dissent that by dropping this, it lowers the commitment on fighting low inflation, thank you? >> thanks. as i mentioned in my statement, the reason the committee felt the time come to revise the forward guidance, the committee think it's been effective. i think it had a useful impact in helping markets understand our expectations and shaping

their own. it is becoming as the unemployment rate gets closer and closer to 6.5%, to breaching that threshold that seems like the one that is likely to be breached, the question is, markets want to know the public wants to understand beyond that threshold how will we decide what to do. so the purpose of this change is simply to provide more information than we have in the past even though it is qualitative information, we will be looking at as the unemployment rate declines below 6.5% in deciding how long to hold the federal funds rate. as i said, we've tried to give a general formulation of what we'll be looking at which is how far are we, how large are the

shortfalls in achieving our goals. how fast do we expect progress to be. that will be the main factors we'll be looking at. we initially started with unemployment rate as a threshold that i was easy enough for the committee to say, with unemployment rate above 6.5%, we know we're not close to full employment. not close to employment level consistent with our mandate. we wouldn't dream of raising the federal funds rate target. the committee has never felt that the unemployment rate is sufficient statistic for the labor market. i think if he to choose one indicator of the labor market, the unemployment rate is probably as good as one i could find. in assessing the real state of slack in the labor market and

ultimately inflationary pressures that could result from that, it's appropriate to look at many more things. that's why the committee now states we will look at a broad range of information. so the closer we get is we narrow in oncoming closer to the target we want to achieve. we will be carefully considering many indicators of how close are we to our targets. those are the main reasons. now, you asked as well about the dissent. he endorsed the new guidance about the likely path of the federal funds rate after we begin to finally raise it. that indicates that it's

unlikely to be back to normal levels for some time. he questions whether or not the reformulated forward guidance shows sufficient commitment of the committee to its 2% inflation objective. i would simply say on my own behalf and behalf of the committee, we are fully committed to the two percent inflation objective. we do not want to undershoot inflation for prolonged period of time. as i mentioned, monetary policy operates with lags. so the policies we have in place, we think will gradually move inflation back to two percent. if the committee had real concerns, then the inflation will remain consistently below two percent. i feel confident the committee will act to prevent that.

>> john, from the " wall street journal. there seems to be a slight upward drift in the expectations for rates going out to 2016. for instance a majority of officials see rates at one percent or higher. in the last forecast majority saw officials less than one percent. i wonder if you can explain why there's this small upward drift and expected rates among committee members? whether these projections are a good guide about the public about the path of rates going forward. how you reconcile this upward drift with the assurances that the committee makes in its statement that rate will stay below normal levels well into

the future? >> there's only very limited upward drift. the committee, i think the committee in assessing the economy, if you compare today's assessment with december's is virtually identical. almost nothing has changed. unemployment has come down. the labor market more broadly i think has improved a little more than we might have expected. that slightly more rapid improvement in the unemployment picture might explain, i can't speak for why write down what they do, a little bit of the upward shift in those dots. more generally, i think one should not look to the dot plot

as the primary way in which the committee wants to or is speaking about policy to the public at large. the affluency statement is the advice the committee as a policy making group uses to express its opinions. we have expressed a number of opinions about the likely path of rates. in particular the committee is endorsed to use it and it anticipate it is will be a considerable period after the asset purchase program ends before it will be appropriate to begin to raise rates. we will be looking at next fall. i think that's important guidance. looking further out, let's say if you look at toward the end of 2016, when most participants are

projecting that the employment situation, the unemployment rate will be close to their notions of mandate consistent or a longer run normal level. what you see -- i think if you look this time, if you gaze at the picture from december or september which is the first year that we showed those slots through the end of 2016, is the massive points that are notably below practice the participants believe is the normal longer run level for nominal short term rates. the committee today for the first time endorsed that as a committee view. i think that's what we should be paying attention to. i would warn you that these dots

are going to move up and down over time, a little bit this way or that. the dots move a little bit in december relative to september. i really don't think it's appropriate to read very much into it. more generally, the end of 2016 is a long way out. monetary policy will be geared to evolving can bees -- conditions in the economy. as those views evolve, the committee views on policy will likely evolve with them. that's kind of uncertainty that the committee will want eliminate completely from its guidance. because we want the policy we put in place to be appropriate to the economic conditions that will prevail years down the road.

>> that one particular paragraph which says that the committee anticipates a lower than normal rate even once you return to the long run. i understand correctly. it means once you hit the longer run unemployment rate 5.4%, once you get two percent inflation rate, the mortgage should not then anticipate the longer run 4% fed funds rate. that would be question number one. question two, doesn't that suggest a shallower glide path once you take off. >> it does suggest shallower glide path. what the committee is expressing here, i would say is its forecast of what will be appropriate from years from now.

based on the understanding that we'll develop about what are the economic forces that has been driving economic activity. we've had a series of years now in which growth has proven disappointing. members of the committee have different views about why this is likely to be true that the funds rate, when the labor market is normalized and inflation is back to our objective, may be have slightly different views on exactly why it's likely to be the case that interest rates will be little lower than they were in the longer run. but for many it's a matter of head winds from the crises that have taken a very long time to dissipate and likely to continue being operative. some examples i would say is we

have households are under going balance sheet repair. there are under water mortgage holders, difficulties in gaining access to credit for example through home equity lines of credit. for some that makes it difficult to finance small businesses. mortgage credit is very difficult for those still to get without credit scores that improve somewhat over time. but it's not back to normal. for some fiscal policy is somewhat tighter than would be expected over the next several years. for some it's head winds from the global economy play a role as well. the general assessment is that even after we've had an

accommodative monetary policy for long enough to get the economy back on track in the sense of meeting our objectives, the stance of policy that will be appropriate through accomplish that won't be easier or involved somewhat lower than would be normal short term interest rates. eventually years later most people think they will go back up. as you said, that suggest the path will be gradual. i do want to emphasize this is a forecast. this is the committee's forecast based on its understanding of the economy at this time. as we watch the economy over the next several years that could evolve. >> hi washington post. you mentioned in your testimony on capitol hill that the fed was trying to assess the balance of

effects versus weakness in the economy as the reason for the slow down in growth in the first quarter. you guys mentioned specifically, does that mean that the fed analysis has come down or you still concerned there could be something else going on? you guys also lowered your forecast for gdp growth this year. >> certainly the analysis that we've done, we did spend a lot of time discussing how it's affected businesses and households in various parts of the country. certainly weather has played an important role in weakening economic activity. ....

around here a little bit, but if we take december to march,

committees views are largely unchanged. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> hello. i am with the l.a. times. you have been on and you have served with the fed previously. i am wondering now in the past few weeks, as chairwoman, what has been different about being on the fed and your responsibility as chair? >> thanks. i am very lucky i have had a lot of fed experience to draw on. as i approach this role, because it is complicated and now in many ways, in terms of management and responsibility, to assure the federal reserve ofes progress on its schools

getting the economy back on on ournd making progress financial stability and regulation objectives. i feel the weight of responsibility keenly in the new role i have and i am very committed to making sure i've provide leadership necessary for the federal reserve system to move forward on these goals. in terms of the conduct of business, it is pretty much the same as usual. -- or havevisioning been so far any radical changes in how the federal reserve does its business. the includes operating fomc. >> robin harding from the financial times. given the new qualitative guidance does not give any information about how you will

trade off your unemployment and inflation objectives, how will the risk of higher inflation versus faster progress of unemployment as we get closer to unemployment? thank you. >> so far, we have not had the trade-off to make because inflation is running well below our objectives. remainseasure, there substantial slack in the labor market. aboutoffs and worrying doing more were less because we have conflicting objectives, this really has not been an in our discussions about how to conduct policy now. as we get closer to meeting our goals, it could become an element. we have given

guidance in this statement, and perhaps more guidance in our so-called consensus statement of longer run goals and monetary policy and strategies that would now reaffirm for three years in a row that the committee would take a balanced approach in situations where our objectives conflict and we are faced with between inflation and unemployment. when we first put our threshold into effect, we envisioned a possible situation where such a where we could arrive, might face a situation where unemployment was quite high, namely over 6.5%. and inflation might drift close to two. our threshold-based guidance gave more concrete indication we would tolerate inflation running

a little over two percent with unemployment sufficiently high before moving the federal funds rate off of zero. concretetent the guidance is useful, i do not believe it is a situation -- if i thought that was a situation we are likely to encounter in several years, we probably would have revived -- revise our forward guidance in a different way. as eliminating the language because it does not seem like a situation that is at all likely. i would point you to the final statement in this statement that the fomc does not see this guidance as indicating any change in our policy intentions. how we wouldde

make trade-offs between our inflation and employment objectives, if we were to face -- asituation area situation. first, you said something that happened by next fall, on a path until next fall, it was unclear if you are speaking -- >> i simply meant to say that if we continued to reduce the pace of our asset cases in the manner we have, in measured steps, the program would be winding down next fall. >> in this coming fall, not the fall of next year. >> this coming fall. down the bondnd

buying program, could you tell us how long of a gap we might expect before rate hikes again? -- begin? >> the language we use is considerable. this is the kind of turn that is hard to define. probably something around the order of around six months or that type of thing. it depends what the statement is saying, it depends what conditions there are. see where the labor market is and how close we are to our full employment goal. that will be a complicated assessment not just based on a single statistic, and how rapidly we are moving toward it, really close and really fast?

or are we getting closer but moving slowly? the statement and what it emphasizes, this is the thing language we used in december and january, we use the language, especially if inflation is running below two percent objective. principle tries to capture the notion. if we have a substantial shortfall in of inflation, if is persistently running below our two percent objective, narrow and -- that is very good reasons older for longer. >> the committee passes vice-chairman said recently if the economy decided it was not growing at all, those would be the kind of changes in the outlook that would warrant changing tapering. is that an accurate description

of what you mean? anything between zero and five? secondly, there is a lot of research showing short unemployment seems to be responsible for the level of inflation. is that the fed posses you at this point? >> the numbers you cited would be extremes. i would not go to such extremes. way i would put it is this. the first is we need to assess the labor market continues to be on demand and we seem reasonably that wille outlook

not get us back. second of all, we need to see coming back to the inflation again, inflation is low. we believe the evidence is consistent with it is moving up over time. within a longer comfortable making the assessments. they no longer seem reasonable make thecing to extensions and asset purchases to the current plan.

five percent and one percent are extreme numbers. i want to feel confident making those two statements. with respect to the issue of short-term unemployment, is more relevant for inflation of the labor market. to adopt any notion that says the stock is an accurate read on how inflation is determined. this is something our committee will look at, especially as otheroyment goes down and labor market indicators simultaneously improve. we have looking at a broadly -- range of indicators. mentions where we

see slack in the economy. >> you have spoken in the past about margin last year how you supplement your view about the labor market. layoffs and things like that. involvedour dashboard in speaking in the past few which indicators, positive andata, negative indicators, thank you. >> i have spoken in the past about indicators i would like to

to thein addition unemployment rate. we will certainly look at border measures. my statement. five percent of the labor force working part-time on an involuntary basis, that is a high number relative to the measured unemployment rate. to my mind, it is a form of slack that adds to what we see in the normal unemployment rate and is unusually large. down and moving in the right direction and is moving even more than recently. i watched marginally detached workers ms chair has been

immensely high and can be very stubborn in bringing down. that is something i watched closely that remains exceptionally high. from somethingn like 45% high 30 posses it is in my dashboard labor force participation. suggests due to factors, labor force participation will be coming down and there has been a downward trend for a number of years. component inclical the fact labor force participation is depressed. economy against to strengthen the, we could see labor force participation latin out for a time as discouraged workers start moving back into

the labor market. that is something i am watching closely. there are different views on this within the committee. it is hard to know definitively what part of the labor force participation is structural versus cyclical. something to watch closely. i mentioned in the past, measures of labor market turnover. usually going directly into another job. i think in many ways as a sign of the economy. reduce willingness to quit their jobs. quit rates are now below normal prerecession levels but on the other hand, they have come up

over time and we have seen improvement. the job opening rate has also come up. the hires rate remains extremely depressed and i think that is a market.a weaker labor these measures do not retain the identical measure of improvement, if you ask about my -- word, the dial on virtually all of those things is moving in the direction of improvement. the final thing i mentioned is wages. verygrowth has been really low. there has been one isolated measure of wage growth that presents an uptick, but most increase are at very low levels. growth, andivity two percent inflation, one would

probably expect to see something between perhaps three percent and four percent wage inflation would be normal. it has been running at two percent. not only is it depressed, signaling weakness in the labor market, it is certainly not flashing an increase which might signal tightening or meaningful on inflation, at least over time. i would say we are not seeing that. >> light angers from cvs. for tens of millions of americans, the recovery is a long time covering. thoughts on why the recovery is so slow and why the economy is not creating more. >> the short answer is we have

lived through a devastating financial crisis that has taken an exceptional toll on the economy in many different ways, from housing to leaving a huge number of homeowners with living in homes with mortgages that are underwater. it has had a highly negative affect on their credit ratings and ability to access credit. it has left his mrs. with cautious attitudes that we see in business investment spending which is very strange. we have had weakness in the global economy and a very tight fiscal policy at home after stimulus at the onset of the recession, we have had a good deal of fiscal consolidation in

the united states. at a time when fiscal policy of normally, in the past, would have been surfing to create jobs, fiscal policy from that standpoint has served as a headwind for the country, and especially at the federal level but also state and local levels as well. we have had a disappointing recovery and monetary policy is tried to do what we can to offset that. the linkages are not as strong or quick as we might ideally like them to be. >> thank you. i would like to take you back to last summer when there were hints by the fed that they were going to taper and long-term interest rates spiked. what lessons, looking back at

what lessons have you learned and are you confident you will not repeat those mistakes again? >> there are quite a number of things happening at that time. it is probably true monetary may have played a role touching off the market reaction but the market reaction was aacerbated by the fact we had very significant online to of trays and other leveraged that investors had taken, perhaps thinking the wasl volatility exceptionally low and perhaps lower than was safe for them to have assumed. ways, the fact the term

has come up in interest rate so it has had ah negative effect on the recovery which is evident in housing and the slowdown, perhaps it has diminished some financial instability risk that may have been associated with these traits and speculative activities unwinding during that is we will and we were trying but we will and will continue to try to communicate as clearly as we possibly can about how we will conduct monetary policy to bs steady and determined and transparent as we can to provide as much clarity as is reasonably certain given the economic developments in the

economy are themselves uncertain. as hard as we cannot to be a source of instability here. >> masher, abc news. drivers last spring and summer of home prices and home sales was that sense that interest rates were going up and were spiking. a year later, we're looking at a flat interest rate picture as far as homebuyers are concerned. is there any sense on your committee that staying on this level loses its punch the longer we remain here? if i am thinking about going out and building a home, why should i do that today as opposed to waiting a few more years and months before interest rates go up? >> the level of interest rates remains by historic levels. the level of household formation

is and has been very depressed for some time. a lot of kids were shacking up with their families. they would probably like to be places andnd wiring their own, and apartment order home. potentialemographic there for a new household that would generate either single or multifamily. the level of rates matters. the fact that there alone now is something that should serve as a backlus as people coming to the housing market. we have not yet seen the pickup uper interest rates went last summer, but i do expect housing activity to begin to expand more rapidly later on.

xdo not think it is only the dictation i have to live now, or things will be more expensive later, that spurs those decisions. >> hello. k davidson from politico. much has been made about the fact you and your predecessor agreed and shared many of the same policy views. can you tell us one way in which your chairmanship will be >>ferent and ben bernanke's? we are committed to the same set of goals. as i indicated,