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May 6, 2020

With Special Guest Raphael Bostic

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Raphael Bostic
Raphael Bostic | President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Raphael Bostic and Richard Green discuss the unprecedented impact that COVID-19 has made on the US and how the Federal Government has taken unprecedented steps to meet that challenge. Reflecting upon the quick, broad, and bi-partisan efforts made since the COVID-19 outbreak, Bostic points out that “when very unexpected things happen, everything is possible”.

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Richard Green [00:03:32]Good morning, everybody. My name's Richard Green, I'm director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, and it is my very distinct pleasure this morning to welcome home, if only virtually Raphael Bostic, the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. As many of you know, Raphael was on our faculty at USC for the neighborhood of 20 years. We were colleagues together at USC for 10 years. And if I could share just one story is I was very honored when he came to me in 2009 to ask whether he should go for the job of assistant secretary for policy development research at HUD. And I said, of course you should do it because it would be good for the country if you did it. And having served at PD+R after he left, I can tell you from his legacy that I was correct, that his presence there made the country a better place because he improved the evidence... He improved the body of evidence that is available to make decisions about things like housing and mortgage finance policy. So, again, a great pleasure to have Raphael back with us, wearing a very sharp shirt. I should note, by the way. And so let me start with a question that involves fiscal policy and the Federal Reserve is about monetary policy and we're certainly going to get into that, but it has to do with forecasting what the economy is going to do in the second quarter. And it's about an issue that I'm a little confused about. So I see forecasts of the second quarter of GDP. It's calling for fall of 30 to 40 percent on an annualized basis, if you look at the consensus estimates, but that that's annualized. So for the quarter, that's seven and a half to 10 percent of the economy, which is about 2 trillion dollars, something less than 2 trillion dollars. And we've seen this stimulus program roll out who's  various elements add up to now nearly three trillion dollars. We think the multiplier effect on this is about point six. So that's like one point eight trillion. So how do we take all of that into consideration in thinking about the amount of money that's going to be available in people's pockets to spend in the second quarter of twenty twenty? [147.1s]

Raphael Bostic [00:06:01]Richard, before I answer that question, I just want to say good morning to everyone. It's good to see you. It's good to be back with the USC family. [7.7s] [00:06:21]I have to say that it has been significant and substantial. And, [5.7s] [00:06:27]one of the things that I think has been perhaps overlooked is really how fast this has happened and how bipartisan the approach has been. You know, that the House is voting remotely on these things and they're getting basic unanimous passage. [15.0s]

Raphael Bostic [00:06:43]in the Great Recession, the first bill, the TARP bill failed. So this is really a different time. [7.1s] [00:07:00]I would say is that the relief that's going out is extremely broad based. And it's it's my hope that it's getting to businesses and the families in a way and in a timeliness that helps them bridge some of the difficulties. There's a lot of uncertainty about how long this is going to last. We've never actually seen and certainly not in my lifetime and and not for a long time, something that's been so widespread in terms of its impact. We are all living this together. And so unlike a hurricane or an earthquake where there may be a market or a geography that's hit. This is the whole country. And so the scale is totally different. And we're going to have to figure out and we'll learn sort of what's necessary and appropriate. But what's been done thus far is substantial. And I and my team is continuing to keep an eye out to to see if there are areas or pockets where relief is not getting to. [55.6s]

Richard Green [00:08:06]unemployment benefits have been raised substantially. An extra six hundred dollars a week. How does that flow through the economy more broadly? [11.8s] 

Raphael Bostic [00:08:47]the unemployment insurance is a way to touch people that we know are actually being disrupted and hurt. And it's in a direct way and it's quite different than that than the economic impact payment that. Twelve hundred dollars a person with a child credit. [14.3s] [00:09:05]I think it actually makes a big difference and will make a big difference, because the folks who file for that insurance are really looking at a situation where they're not going to have any income and they know that for sure. [11.5s] [00:10:16]one thing I should emphasize, we know that about 40 to 45 percent of families don't really have any kind of savings. Right. And so they didn't have a buffer to fall back on. So they don't have income. They're really not going to be able to spend on anything. And so it's a really big change for that. [15.2s]

Richard Green [00:10:42]Fed has opened up a number of credit facilities in order to help with liquidity issues, particularly for we have a lot of businesses out there that we know are good businesses, but just don't have cash flow at the moment. Can you tell us about three of the most important facilities, how they work? [18.4s]

Raphael Bostic [00:11:06]nine. I think we've rolled out nine facilities in about a six to eight week period, which is unprecedented. [4.8s] [00:11:22]for me, the the ones that are the most important and significant to start were the ones that dealt with the financial markets. So think about primary dealers and a liquidity facility for them, which allowed us to make sure that we can continue to execute monetary policy. [15.7s]

Raphael Bostic [00:12:16]provided...let me call up one that's a little more obscure, which is the the facility on dollar swaps. This has been an important thing for other central banks around the world because so many international contracts are done in dollars. And so we wanted to make sure there was stability in those markets. [19.5s] [00:13:20]And then I know folks are really interested in the pivot that we've made to try to do facilities for Main Street as well. For  businesses. We've provided extra liquidity for the paycheck protection program. [13.8s] [00:13:37]we've announced and we're working on the mainstream lending facility, which is really designed to reach out and touch businesses above that SBA limit of 500 employees or less, so that they're trying to make sure that there's support and relief that gets to virtually all segments of the marketplace. [17.8s]

Richard Green [00:13:57]So let's move on to something that I know you care a lot about, been working on your entire career, which is the mortgage [5.8s] [00:14:09]spreads are very wide between 10 year treasuries and 30 year fixed rate mortgage rates, about 90 basis points wider than usual. And we're finding people who could still benefit from refinancing even at these elevated rates relative to treasuries are having a difficult time getting that re financed. Could you comment on some things, some policies that might be implemented to deal with these issues? [24.9s]

Raphael Bostic [00:14:36]the mortgage market has been an interesting one because it's being touched in a number of different ways. So through the CARES Act, there's a lot of forbearance that was put out there that was offered to families and that has direct implications on the basic functioning of the mortgage market and liquidity that's going to be provided. [17.4s] [00:15:13]You know, the Federal Reserve continues to buy a significant number of securities to try to make sure there's liquidity in the market. And there's one aspect that I think has been I've been particularly sensitive to, which is just the ability to do transactions because of clerks and local governments. And if these governments are shut down, then we can't actually record the things that need to be recorded to close these. And it's triggered a series of responses by local governments to try to figure out how to digitize, how to automate, how to create attestations and the like about values and the things that transactions can continue to move. [41.7s] 

Richard Green [00:16:17]So I am curious in your part, will you have any sense of how many transactions are being interrupted? [4.6s] 

Raphael Bostic [00:16:41]I would say it's probably medium to small, but it is it is geographically varied. So in big cities where there's a mature infrastructure, I think many of those cities have if they weren't already moving to a more remote ability to do transactions, they've figured out how to accel erate that. [22.2s] [00:17:12]But if you go to some of the more outlying or suburban areas, I think you start to or rural areas. Those are the places where I think you're going to see a much larger impact moving forward. [11.7s]

Richard Green [00:17:29]I want to come back a little bit to servicing issues, which you sort of touched on briefly. How worried are you about the capacity of servicers to deal with the forbearance issues? And again, what policies do you think might be appropriate or maybe you're not worried? [20.3s] 

Raphael Bostic [00:17:54]Well, [0.0s] [00:17:55]you can be sure that I've heard a lot from people who have called me about the servicing issue. And this has been something that has definitely been at the forefront of my thinking about where we are. I actually have a pretty significant and robust research team that works on housing. And [21.3s] [00:18:16]they started yelling at me about this as well. What I would say is that the policymakers in Washington are paying attention. And what I've what I've heard from them is that they're monitoring the marketplace. And if there are signs, the stresses are starting to emerge that are larger than what they expected, that they'll act. [23.0s] [00:18:41]know, we've seen this in the case of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They initially were not doing very much in terms of forbearance. They've announced movements there with the sign off from the FHFA commissioner. And we're going to continue to to watch. And if we see those stresses evolving, we're going to reach out and engage. [22.3s] [00:19:04]I know, [0.1s] [00:19:05]we were talking earlier, there is still some divergence between how Fannie and Freddie are treating these. My expectation is. And my hope is that they start they talk to each other, figure out what makes the most sense. [13.7s] [00:19:30]And just one last thing on this. Before the announcement on Fannie and Freddie, we were starting to see evidence that mortgage lenders were pulling back from certain types of markets. In California, jumbo market spreads were starting to to widen pretty significantly. And it was there was a risk that this was going to bleed into the single-family purchase market in a pretty significant way beyond just refinance just as a basic servicing. And it was going to be  new construction as well. We've seen a lot of reduction in tension in that. I think that's a very good thing. [36.5s]

Richard Green [00:20:16]function. So the Atlanta Fed has a forecast. And you know, what everybody wants to know is U or V or L, and part of it is reflection of all the stuff that we're throwing at this problem that we have right now to use an understated word. How much will it help keep the plumbing of the economy intact, which means that we recover faster? So what is the view of the Atlanta Fed on this at the moment? [31.9s]

[00:20:49]I would say there a diversity of views in my building. I'll tell you that in my view, which is it really depends. [7.3s] [00:21:01]The day before the virus came here and we had to move to social distancing protocols. The economy has been growing for basically 11 years. The fundamentals were sound. We had historic levels of unemployment and the basics, the basic plumbing of the economy, as you say, Richard, was in pretty good shape. So the whole idea in my mind to the policies of relief that have come forward and now people call it stimulus, actually looking at much more in terms of relief have really been to try to preserve as many of those fundamentals as possible so that when we get to the other side of this, of those fundamentals getting back on and we can get to a recovery that starts to look the way the economy did before. So we're monitoring right now to see how much of that to what extent this relief is providing those sorts of ranges and preserving that stability.   And I talk to small businesses a lot. And what they've told me is that they're going to do everything they can to hold on. They're very hopeful that that this relief gives them enough so they can move forward. But we're still in the early stages of knowing exactly what's going to happen. [104.4s]

Richard Green [00:22:52]you're talking about one to the other side. When do you think the other side comes? [3.0s]

Raphael Bostic [00:23:01]The hard part to forecast on this is that it really depends on how the virus's spread progresses. If the virus's spread progresses in a way such that we get it under control quickly, then I think the ability for us to get into that robust, stable recovery period comes much sooner. If, on the other hand, we are in a situation where we don't have the virus's spread controled. The confidence of consumers is not going to be there to do a lot of the things that would typically happen in the basic economy. [35.7s] [00:23:43]So it's important that it's very foundations to remember that this is a public health crisis at his heart. And because of that, the recovery is going to really depend on how well we do in dealing with that crisis. [14.1s]

Richard Green [00:23:59]So let me let me turn it over to audience questions. [4.2s] [00:24:18]let me start with the real estate question again. But on the commercial side, what what do you see about forbearance of loans for commercial properties? How widespread do you think it will be? And what do you about forbearance is what's worth through this period? How do we expect people to repay what they didn't pay earlier? [17.9s]

Raphael Bostic [00:24:38]in terms of forbearance, I think that the initial focus has been definitely on homeowners and households and families for for many. What I would say in terms of commercial properties, I think is going to be a case by case basis situation. But in terms of the repayment, [20.4s] [00:25:04]one issue has come up repeatedly is that don't create a bridge, and then have it such that the repayment terms become things that are not manageable, because if we get into the other side and then drop a heavy weight on them, then we've just defeated the basic purpose. So we've been thinking very hard internally about how long and what the terms of those repayments are. And, you know, as I've talked to bankers who were restructuring loans for their customers, they're having that conversation. When I talk to a multifamily property owners, for example, they are also starting to have those conversations in terms of, you know, what's the proper appropriate scoping. So it's definitely in the forefront of people's minds. [45.4s] 

Richard Green [00:26:09]So let me let me follow that up with the landlord tenant relationship forbearance. And so we know lots of landlords are forbearing with tenants. Part of the reason is because they see it as a good distance practice. Part of the reason is they're being told that they can't evict anyway. In many jurisdictions. But again, and we should assign both commercial and residential side. So, for example, owners of shopping centers are forbearing, which many of their tenants, because their candidates are closed, they have they have no cash flow. But again, when we open up, if you just say to people at that point, you got to pay all your back rent. Well, that will almost certainly lead to a default, whether it be on the residential or the cover as such. Do you have any thoughts on how that might be best handled or are you talking to people about that issue? [50.0s]

Raphael Bostic [00:27:02]one other thing I would say in terms of landlords is that the current environment, like the forbearance, makes sense, because if you kick someone out, you've got to find someone. [9.4s]

Raphael Bostic [00:27:13]And in today's environment, who you're going to get, that's going to be in a better position, that you're going to know better or have any greater likelihood of getting repaid. So so I think there are lots of reasons why we want to forbear. I think that that this is going to really be around having conversations with between tenants and landlords. I think what I found in my conversations with landlords is that they all understand that the challenges of their hands are having, not because they've taken undue risks. But this is the nature of this is quite different. And I've really heard a willingness to try to extend the relationship and the nature of what that repayment looks like. I would also encourage. Landlords and property owners to talk to their lenders as well. We at the Federal Reserve have really encouraged banking institutions to work with their borrowers and their customers, to try to reduce the amount of burden that their relationships with their customers are. I think that this is going to be a time where there's a real opportunity for everyone to come together and find sensible solutions to a crisis that is really not of any of our making, but rather has been dropped upon us. So so there's a lot of talking that needs to happen, [77.0s] [00:28:32]I've actually not found anyone who has who has said, you know, I'm just going to hold everyone exactly to their terms. [6.2s] 

Richard Green [00:28:54]inflation is something that a number of our viewers are raising this issue. And of course, the Federal Reserve is appropriately, in my view, printing a lot of money right now. What is the Fed's outlook on inflation as a result of all of this? Is it something we need to be concerned about? [18.6s]

Raphael Bostic [00:29:14]So we've been concerned about inflation. We've been having concerns about inflation spiraling out of control to the upside for the better part of seven years. And it just hasn't been realized. There are lots of technical reasons and explanations for why people think that is. But I would say right now, I don't I don't think spiraling inflation is is top of mind for me as a concern. And in fact, there are a number of reasons why we might expect there to be downward pressure on prices in the current environment. You know, the oil situation remains significant. The introduction of technology is reducing the cost of doing a lot of business. And these are structural things that were already going on that in some in some sectors, in some markets are actually accelerating. And so I'm I'm actually not that worried about inflation now. But I don't think we're gonna really have as an issue for the next six to 12 months. But if it starts to feel like it's going out of control, I have every confidence that the committee will pay attention and we'll respond as necessary. [69.0s]

Richard Green [00:30:25]along those lines, I'm curious how much coordination is happening between the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world. Because the entire world is dealing with this crisis right now. Is there any kind of coordinated monetary policy response or are you guys just sort of keeping up to date with each other about what you're doing? [20.9s]

Raphael Bostic [00:30:47]Well, we always interact and we have a regular ongoing relationship with all the central banks. I wouldn't say that there is direct coordination such that we say, OK, we're going to act on Wednesday. You guys are going go on Thursday. But we definitely make sure that our central banking partners around the world know sort of how we're thinking about things, know the issues and the concerns that we're seeing. You know, it's actually very interesting in this in this role, I've had the pleasure of and the opportunity to speak in Asia and in Europe. And in both those instances, they pay pretty close attention to what's going on in the U.S. And so the things that we do actually will help inform the decision that policymakers will make overseas and vice versa. So I think--I won't say we coordinate so explicitly, like we all get in the room and then decide. But, you know, we are very closely engaging with them and we'll continue to do so. And we we want to make sure that the global economy gets through this as as well as possible, because, you know, we are part of that economy. And if there are weaknesses in other places, then that has the potential to come back and make it tougher for us. [82.1s]

Richard Green [00:32:11]So this question I'm going to attribute to our joint friend, Michael Banner. Michael asked the question if unemployment will be bad around the country, which it is how bad you believe unemployment will rise in urban areas inhabited by people of color and lower income. So what is the distributional impact of all? [19.2s]

Richard Green [00:32:31]Let me say let me say two things on this. First, we know the numbers for last month and this month are going to be tough. They're gonna be rough. But the question for me is really, to what extent are they a permanent job losses versus temporary job losses? And this really gets to the question of relief. So if the relief gets the businesses in ways that are helpful, they can keep them having relations with their workers. That is my hope that many of these job losses that are being recorded now will actually not be what the story is when we think about the COVID response over the enduring term. [32.6s] [00:33:07]we actually know that before the crisis there was a differential reality in terms of certain neighborhoods and certain segments of our population being able to participate in labor markets and in entrepreneurship and all those sorts of things with ethnic minorities and poor people definitely being at a disadvantage. There's a real concern that this crisis, just like many other crises, will hit these communities harder. They they are less resilient. They have fewer savings. [31.5s] [00:33:42]The businesses that support them will also not have the same levels of resilience. [4.6s] [00:34:12]So it's something that we're definitely concerned about. My team is now doing I can say we're doing a survey every four to six weeks of institutions and nonprofits that work in low and moderate income communities. And I think we just released the results of a study yesterday or the day before that I would encourage Michael and others to to go look at, because there's a lot of information there and there's real some real stresses. [27.8s]

Richard Green [00:34:42]So, you know, an important contributor to local economic activities are state and local governments. School systems, for example, are often the largest employers in a community. They're going to be in trouble because their tax revenues are going to fall. And I know the Fed has a facility for municipal debt. But could you comment a little more on policy response to the issues that state and local governments are facing at the moment? [27.8s]

Richard Green [00:35:11]Well, [0.0s] [00:35:12]you reminded me of this one thing, which is that, [1.9s] [00:35:14]with all these facilities, we are issuing them with the support of the US Treasury. [5.8s] [00:35:23]there are some legal authorities that we have through the Dodd-Frank Act, [2.9s] [00:35:32]that give us the emergency authority to issue facilities, but they require treasury backstop. So we have constraints and we are a lender, not a spender. So we do loans. We don't do direct grants. So we think about the government, state, local governments. They are definitely under stress. [19.6s] [00:36:10]the federal government needs to be monitoring local governments to see if the relief that's out there is enough. And if it's not, they're going to have to make decisions about whether some more direct supports are going to be needed. It's not something that we we really have the authority to act unilaterally. And so will we will monitor and inform policymakers of what we see and then we'll take their lead in deciding what our next steps will look like. [28.9s]

Richard Green [00:36:42]a couple of people have brought up the issue of affordable housing development, that there has been a contraction in tax credit pricing and willingness of banks to cut new deals. [11.8s] [00:37:02]does...How would you respond to that as you worry about that affordable housing projects are going to be slowed down as a result of this? [8.1s] 

Raphael Bostic [00:37:20]on one hand, in many places in my district, for example, construction is being deemed basically as an essential occupation. [9.8s] [00:37:35]I think the question really is about moving forward. If you have businesses that have significant losses. How do things like tax credits work and how do you continue to get stimulus into our incentives that matter into that infrastructure? [15.5s] [00:37:52]these are hard questions, but these are questions that we also had coming out of the Great Recession. And we frankly don't have straightforward answers for this. I've been talking with folks here in local government to really start to wrestle with a bunch of these sorts of questions about should cities start thinking about affordable housing, bond financing. [23.9s] [00:38:27]I think as a frontline issue and a frontline concern as more families are potentially at risk of needing housing that is lower cost than what they're in right now. [9.4s]

Richard Green [00:38:39]So I'm going to ask a question that perhaps you don't want to answer, and that's fine, but it's from a former student of yours. [4.3s] [00:38:45]It's from Daniel Farrisat. And it says he was in your class at the time Lehman Brothers crashed. And he said everything you were about to teach doesn't apply anymore, [12.0s] [00:39:01]And he said, it seems like a new rule book is being created again. And people are saying, don't fight the Fed. Who will be the biggest winners of the Fed's actions? [6.8s] 

Raphael Bostic [00:39:11]Well, I hope the answer to that question as the American people, because, [3.0s] [00:39:15]what we are trying to do is make sure that that this exogenous shock to the economy does not wreck [7.8s] [00:39:24]millions and millions of lives. And so we need to make sure that businesses stay as stable as possible. We need to make sure that households are able to continue to bridge this. [11.5s] [00:39:41]And [0.0s] [00:39:43]that we do things in a way that allows people to keep their health because this is a health crisis. And if we don't get that right. It's hard to see how all the other stuff is gonna really work out. [12.2s] [00:40:10]And so this is this is very different than the Great Recession, where there were clear risks that emerged in particular sectors that needed to sort of work themselves out and be resolved. [12.2s] [00:40:36]So for me, I think the winners hopefully will be everybody. And we get things to people in time and in ways that that that can help them move forward. [9.8s]

Richard Green [00:40:47]Well, that sort of touches on a point that a couple of questionnaires have made is you how much do you worry about moral hazard that people are just going to take undue advantage of the programs that are out there right now? [11.1s] 

Raphael Bostic [00:41:08]when in doing any kind of policy, you have two choices, you can either be fast or you can be precise, right? [8.0s] [00:41:19]but if you're gonna be precise, that means that you're gonna have to set up a bunch of conditions. You're going to have a lot of monitoring that's required. [5.7s] [00:41:31]in this instance, because of the speed at which economies were shut down, policymakers made a decision that they needed to be fast. And that comes with costs for sure. And and I think you've seen it in the Paycheck Protection Program there's been sort of almost like a public shaming of public companies that have taken money from that program when it's clear that they had other sources, other ways to raise capital, [25.7s] [00:42:02]And we're starting to see people turn that money back. [1.6s] [00:42:08]always...nothing is ever going to be 100 percent perfect. But in this instance, I think it was really important to signal that we're going to get relief out there as much as possible, as broadly as possible and do it in a fast way.  [11.5s] 

Richard Green [00:42:41]Question from Denise Keys. It seems like the US does not have emergency or triage infrastructure in place for economic emergencies such as this. What would it take to have an economic ER and who would best implement this system? [12.5s]

Raphael Bostic [00:42:59]I'll say this. I don't think any playbook of how you manage your company or how you manage a government or an institution envisioned this kind of disruption. So we are we are truly in an unprecedented time. [19.1s] [00:43:33]so it's I think it's going to create a conversation that starts to look at some of these things and really raise questions about, [6.7s] [00:43:42]write...when you drive a sector or a market to a very high level of efficiency, you can see huge shifts in productive capacity because of relatively small shocks. [13.0s] [00:43:56]we've seen this in terms of going to the grocery store and not seeing paper towels [5.2s] [00:44:03]because  the amount and the supply chains for household use of those goods is so separated from the supply chain for commercial uses for those goods. [9.9s] [00:44:19]And we may actually see a collective willingness to have something, an approach, that doesn't continually push us completely to the knife edge of the last marginal dollar being deployed so ruthlessly. [15.0s] [00:44:40]I'm really looking forward to seeing how we all respond to this and sort of where we settle. [5.3s]

Richard Green [00:44:47]So I am going to say, we have a bunch of questions asking you to forecast short term interest rates. And I know you really shouldn't do that. I'm not going to... [6.8s] 

Raphael Bostic [00:45:01]This is okay. It's just my my opinion. [1.7s]

Richard Green [00:45:05]We're basically close to zero. I don't see our policy rate shifting in a significant way unless we see signs that the economy is truly back on its feet. [11.0s] [00:45:43]I think it's important that we don't act prematurely and and and cut off some of the momentum about a recovery that we really need to see happen in a strong way as possible. [12.2s]

Richard Green [00:45:57]let's finish up with a philosophical question. [2.0s] [00:46:00]Jonathan---and the reason I love the question is it dovetails with one of my favorite Keynes quotes, which is "When the facts change, I change my mind." What has happened during this crisis that has made you rethink previously held assumptions? [14.1s]

Raphael Bostic [00:46:21]You know, I don't know that it's changed. But what I would say is this before this crisis, the Federal Reserve was not supposed to get into municipal funding. It was supposed to think about really providing support for corporate debt. The notion that you would give a lump sum payment to every household, beneath a certain income level, something like a minimum income threshold...these were all things that were in the idea space, but not necessarily in the reality space. And I think what I've learned perhaps again, is that when hard things happen, when very unexpected things happen, everything is possible. [46.0s] [00:47:09]we've definitely demonstrated that and how we've acted. And I think the Congress has done that as well. [6.3s] [00:47:17]the commitment of our country to collectively try to come together to help and provide support has been demonstrated in a way that maybe [10.9s] [00:47:29]some cynics of the political things that have happened in the last several years might have thought would not be possible. There's an American spirit that's still there. And there's a collective America [11.5s] [00:47:43]that's still there. And I think that we need to take this moment and remember this and try as much as we can to keep it in how we approach ourselves and our businesses and our neighbors. [12.0s]

Richard Green [00:47:57]Rafael Bostic, CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. [5.7s] 

Raphael Bostic [00:48:23]You can connect with us @AtlantaFed. I also have a Twitter feed is just at @raphaelbostic. Feel free to follow me there as well. [6.6s]

Richard Green [00:48:47]So text through me 3 7 7 7 to get the Atlanta Fed weekly newsletter. And they do great work there. I have good friends who do work I follow very closely at the Fed, at the Atlanta Fed. They do great work on housing economics in particular. So you're going to want to follow them again. Rafael Bostic, thank you so much for joining us this morning. [25.4s]

Raphael Bostic [00:49:13]It's been a pleasure, Richard. Very good to see you. [1.8s]

Richard Green [00:49:15]Good to see you, too. Fight on.