At least it's not a measured pace

Felix Salmon links to my analysis of the FOMC statement (as well as Mark Thoma's and Barry Ritholtz's). He writes:

For instance, the markets spent much of yesterday wondering exactly what the difference is between these two sentences:

Recent readings on core inflation have been somewhat elevated.

Core inflation remains somewhat elevated.

This is a waste not only of the FOMC's time, but also of the time of hundreds of analysts who suddenly find themselves in the position of rune-readers.

While I am sympathetic to Salmon's general point, this particular sentence did not exactly cause me to agonize for hours--more like seconds. Two months out of the last five have seen pretty decent readings on the core PCE deflator and the trend seems to be in the right direction. Nevertheless year-on-year inflation is still higher than they'd like it to be. Especially given the March number, the first sentence doesn't really ring true. The second one fits the bill a little better. Personally, I would not read anything more into it than that. Your mileage may vary.

I don't think much of Salmon's suggestion to have a different committee member write the statement and sign it each time. That would be even harder for the market to deal with. Salmon then concludes:

In any case, I think the best solution would be something which would concentrate the markets on the substance of what is being said, rather than on the silly differences between what is said this time and what was said last time. Surely that must be possible somehow.

Well, there's inflation targeting, I suppose.