Economic Outlook Symposium Welcome Remarks

RICK MATTOON: Good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to today's program. My name is Rick Mattoon. I'm the Vice President for Regional Analysis and Engagement, and I'm also the Regional Executive at our Detroit branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

It's my extreme honor to be able to welcome you all to the 38th Annual Economic Outlook Symposium. And I think Tom has told me that when we hit 40, everybody who attends will get a free set of steak knives. So I hope you'll be coming back. So we'll build that in.

What's really great about this program, and one of the things why we like doing, is really our opportunity to thank so many of the people who are in this room and online who provide incredibly important contact information for us about conditions in their communities and their industries. This is really-- I can't emphasize how important this is in our FOMC process. It really helps us inform the policy-making that we're trying to do in monetary policy. The time that you spend sharing your insights with us is incredibly valuable to us as a bank, and we're really very much in your debt.

Today, I think we have a really great program for you. It's a little bit of a mix of the old and the new. So part of the new part of this is what our first panel is going to look at, give you an opportunity to see what we see, which is bring together some people who are experts in their area, who have shared their information with us throughout the year, and give you an idea of just how valuable this kind of information is that we get on a regular basis. So it's an opportunity for you to understand exactly what we get out of these sorts of interactions.

Part of the old part of the program is, we're going to have a fireside chat with our bank President, Austan Goolsbee. We did this last year. This was clearly a fan favorite. Austan is not only extremely illuminating, but he also can quite often be quite entertaining. So we're very happy that we're going to be able to offer that.

After our short break, own Tom Wahlstrom will offer both the Consensus Outlook for 2025, as well as drum roll, please, the winners of the 2024 Forecasting Event. So that is always something we always look forward to. And then that's going to be followed by a deeper dive into two areas, which are historically very interest rate sensitive. As you can imagine, one of the things that we've been interested in this changing rate environment is how those parts of the economy operate. So we have experts in both manufacturing and real estate who are going to provide some perspective on what they see going on there.

And then we're going to conclude at lunchtime with what's described somewhat in the panel in our program as a nebulous thing, which is an opportunity to hear from Chicago Fed experts. So one expert is Susan Longworth, who's going to talk to you a bit about some work we've done in child care. And then we have Dan Sullivan, one of our Executive Vice Presidents, who's going to talk to us about labor to a great extent. And I think those will both be great discussions.

The last thing I want to say is, whenever we put on an event like this, one of the things I always realize is that it truly takes a village to put on this kind of event. And there's lots of people behind the scenes who make this happen. That's everybody from our public engagement staff that helps publicize this event, helps make sure we get connected with all the social media channels, all those sorts of things. We have an extraordinary events team, which does everything from managing all the relationships with our speakers, making sure the food's out there, all that kind of stuff. And they really do a terrific job and really deserve a lot of appreciation.

And then of course, lastly, I really have to thank Tom Wahlstrom. Tom, I've had the honor of working with Tom for almost my entire career, basically, at the bank, although, Tom's significantly younger, so it hasn't been the same length of time for him. But Tom is the person who is responsible for the content of the program. And one of the things that Tom brings is a lot of creativity and a lot of thought.

And many of you-- most of you probably in this room have had some interaction with Tom. You know how great he is at engaging people, how thoughtful he is in terms of the questions and the types of information he tries to elicit from people. And he's just really a tremendous asset for us here at the bank. So without further ado, please join me in welcoming Tom Wahlstrom to the stage.