On the program today, we are going to talk about the Fed, a lot.

You'll see why.

From American public media, this is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdahl. It is Tuesday today, December the 2nd. Good as always to have you along, everybody.

There are, of course, a zillion ways to cover the Federal Reserve. You could talk about interest rates if you wanted to, monetary policy, the cost of money that affects

each and every one of us. You could talk about the central bank as a bank regulator, which it is.

You could talk about it as the lender of last resort in a crisis, which as we all know, it has

been twice in the past 20 years. Also, though, and this doesn't usually get as much attention,

you could talk about it as a story of people, the people on the board of governors and the people

running the regional banks. And on that score, there are changes in common. So we've done what we

do when we need an inside perspective on the central bank, and we've called Daniel Tarullo.

He was on the board of governors for more than eight years. He is at Harvard Law now. Dan,

it's good to talk to you again. Nice to be back with you, Kai. So much to talk about so little time.

First thing I want to get to is next week's meeting, and I don't, I'm not so interested in what's

going to happen, but how you think it's going to happen.

What's the, what's the conversation inside the room going to be like?

And then when Chair Powell starts taking questions, what do you think he's going to be saying?

Well, I suspect, Kai, that as with almost all, FOMC meetings, the outcome will be pretty much determined before the meeting begins.

We're going to have dissents one way or another, I think. That's almost a foregone conclusion.

So the interesting thing about the meeting will be how are the members of the FOMC signaling

the positions they're going to take in January and beyond. And judging by the

minutes of the October meeting, I think it'll be a more robust discussion than most.

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