This is so far a hypothetical, but how many Fed speeches aren't too many Fed speeches?

From American public media.

This is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizzdahl. It is Tuesday, today, 19 May. Good as always, to have you along, everybody.

I think I said this yesterday, that this is an especially light week on the economic data front.

Today, in fact,

bupkis, statistics-wise. But you do know what we do have over the next couple of days in surplus,

actually, Fed officials offering their thoughts. Fed Governor Christopher Waller today, Philadelphia Fed President on a Paulson as well. A couple of more

through Friday. Friday, as it happens, is when Kevin Warsh is going to get sworn into the

board of governors and a four-year term as chair thereof. We have mentioned a couple of times, I think,

since Warsh became the nominee, that things are going to be different with him in charge. Most

noticeably, in the way the central bank communicates,

Warsh has suggested he might stop holding press conferences after every meeting.

He has criticized the Fed's forward guidance that thing Fed officials do where they say

where they think interest rates are headed.

And he has suggested members of the Board of Governors and Regional Fed

presidents might be giving too many speeches like, oh, say, the ones this week. So Marketplace's

Justin Ho gets us going with why we pay attention to those speeches anyway and what might happen if

there were fewer of them. Keeping track of Fed speeches is a big part of Preston Moy's job.

I try to keep up with every bit of Fed speak I can get my hands on any speeches, prepared remarks, blog posts, LinkedIn posts, tweets, anything like that.

Moy's an economist with the Economic Advocacy Group employ America.

And he says he keeps track of all this to help

him figure out the Fed's thinking. We want to know how they're thinking about economic developments,

...