Yesterday the Federal Reserve released the minutes of the June 16–17 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which was also the debut of Kevin Warsh as Fed chair. Going into the meeting, there were three areas of interest:

Question 1 was answered almost immediately at the conclusion of the meeting. The post-meeting statement was trimmed back sharply, to shorter than a Scott Lincicome tweet. It also contained no forward guidance about future Fed policy. Warsh also declined to submit his economic forecast for the Survey of Economic Projections, suggesting that this feature may be on the short list for being discontinued.

The minutes also presented the discussion on this issue:

A number of participants noted that it was an opportune time to consider significant changes to the FOMC’s postmeeting statement. A majority of participants remarked that they saw advantages in shortening the statement. Most participants emphasized that they preferred not to repeat the language in the previous postmeeting statement that had suggested an easing bias regarding the likely direction of the Committee’s future interest rate decisions. Various participants discussed how the public could perceive the changes to the postmeeting statement. Some participants commented that they welcomed the opportunity to review the Committee’s communications tools and practices.

Question 2 is at the heart of why people await the minutes. Regardless of the chatter surrounding his candidacy, there is no evidence of the new chair lobbying for rate cuts. Instead, the discussion was centered on keeping rates unchanged, with some consideration of raising rates (but no actual votes to do so):

In their consideration of monetary policy at this meeting, all participants supported maintaining the current target range for the federal funds rate. Participants generally noted that recent indicators suggested that economic activity had been expanding at a solid pace and that labor market conditions had appeared stable. Participants observed that inflation was elevated relative to the Committee’s 2 percent longer-run objective, in part reflecting price increases from supply shocks in certain sectors, including energy. Participants generally assessed that information received over the intermeeting period suggested that upside risks to price stability remained elevated while downside risks to achieving maximum employment had moderated a bit. A few participants commented that, in light of these developments, there was a case for raising the target range for the federal funds rate, but those participants indicated that they supported maintaining the current target range at this meeting.

There was literally no mention of the balance sheet or how it would be handled.

There is also a time-honored tradition of reading the minutes selectively to support one’s own views. In light of yesterday’s Eakinomics, note that:

The manager then discussed inflation expectations. He noted that optimism around the Iran conflict pushed market-based measures of expected inflation significantly lower over the period, leaving near-term inflation expectations only moderately higher than they were before the onset of the conflict. Longer-term inflation expectations remained well anchored near the Committee’s 2 percent longer-run inflation objective.

Told you.

And what about question 3? Well: “The Chairman described plans to establish five independent task forces to examine issues related to the broad conduct of monetary policy.” Thanks a ton.