Transcript
Speaker: Masaaki Shirakawa, Governor, Bank of Japan
Presider: William J. McDonough, Former President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York (1993–2003)
April 14, 2011
Council on Foreign Relations
WILLIAM J. MCDONOUGH: This meeting is part of our Peter C. McColough Series on International Economics.
Now, here's something very important for you technically oriented Americans. Please completely turn off, not just put on vibrate, your cell phones, your BlackBerrys -- there's a free advertisement -- and all wireless devices, to avoid interference with our sound system.
I'd like to remind the members that this meeting is on the record. You will see that there are a great many people from the press in the back of the room. And we look forward to the coverage that the governor's speech I'm sure will richly deserve.
Governor Shirakawa is a career man at the Bank of Japan. He spent six months as the representative of the Bank of Japan here in New York and was such an enormous success and so admired by the people at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York -- I was president at the time -- that he got promoted back to Japan and has been rising like a rocket ever since.
Governor, we look forward to your remarks. The floor is yours.