we are concerned that a variety of factors, such as concerns about put backs, that banks may have, uncertainties about regulation, which we re working on to get done as quickly as possible, may have tightened the mortgage credit box more than would be desirable in a long-run, healthy economy. that does have some effect on monetary policy. one of the most powerful tools we have is bringing down mortgage rates and stimulating home buying, construction, and related industries. so that is an issue we take into account. i would say one thing, which is that as the housing industry has strengthened and home prices have gone up, that has actually brought some people into the credit box, in the sense that the number of people, for example, who are underwater on their mortgages, is declining, as house prices go up. so as people have bigger down payments, bigger equity in their homes, they become more creditworthy. so to some extent, not i don t want to overstate it, but to some exten
go to our video library at c-span.org. join us later today for author peter edelman. so rich so poor talks about why our economy creates poverty and wealth at the same time and offers suggestions on how to improve the conditions of tens of millions of americans living below the poverty line. we ll have it live at 6:30 eastern on booktv.org. this weekend on after words, a detail of fast and furious. it was kept from american people and mexican people as well. there are hundreds of faceless, innocent mexican citizens who have been murdered as a result of this. the only thing that we knew outside of the government program was that guns from american gun dealers were going into mexico and causing all of these problems with the cartel when really the government was sanctioning these sales and sending them into mexico. she s interviewed by national journal white house correspondent major garret sunday night at 9:00 part of book tv this weekend on c-span2. this weekend o
longer run normal rates of unemployment. in addition to projecting only slow progress in bringing down unemployment most participants see the risk to the outlook weighted mainly towards slower growth and higher unemployment. in particular, participants noted that strains in global financial markets, associated principally with the situation in europe, continue to pose significant risk to the recovery and further improvement in labor market conditions. meanwhile, inflation has declined recently, primarily reflecting lower prices of crude oil and gasoline. longer term inflation expectations have remained stable and the committee anticipates inflation over the medium run will run at or below the 2% rate that judges most consistent with its statutory mandate with price stability. more specifically participants projections of inflation have a central tendency of 1.2 to 1.7% for 2012 and 1.5 to 2.0% for 2014. the economic projections submitted by fomc participants are conditioned u