The most powerful economic policymakers in the world will descend on Grand Teton National Park in Jackson, Wyo., next week for one of the most exclusive gatherings of the year.
The most hotly anticipated event at the conference, known informally as Jackson Hole, is a speech by Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair. He will provide his economic outlook at the storied Jackson Lake Lodge on Friday morning at a time of immense uncertainty about the trajectory for inflation and the labor market and a drumbeat of calls from the White House to lower borrowing costs.
But first, lodge staff and conference organizers have had to deal with the bats.
A suspected colony of bats recently took up residence in a block of cabins on the property, which is run by the Grand Teton Lodge Company. The bats are thought to have snuck in through a small, roughly half-inch hole on the roof of one of the rooms and, through a connected attic space, accessed seven other cabins.
Seven of the eight bats were captured and screened for rabies, all of which tested negative. One was set free by a guest.
The bat scare is no small matter for the conference. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has held its invitation-only event at the lodge since 1982. It provides a forum for leading central bankers, current and former government officials and academics to debate the most salient topics of the day, from what constitutes a “neutral” level of interest rates that neither speeds up nor slows down demand to the seismic shifts taking root across the global economy.
The rustic lodge is the epicenter of the conference, where at any point over the three-day event policymakers can be found chatting about the latest bear or moose sightings in between discussions about the merits of a 2 percent inflation target.
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The post Fed Chair Faces Scrutiny at Major Policy Speech. Also, Bats. appeared first on New York Times.
