Beginning today (Tuesday) the Federal Reserve loses its
customary reserve and joins the ranks of plain prognosticators. It
will forecast the basic economiic measures of the economy: GDP,
rate of inflation, unemployment, etc. It will do this not once but
four times a year, with estimates going out for three years from
the forecast time.
In short, what had been valued for its rarity and remoteness
becomes another bunch of the boys, predictors in the dismal
science, the mystery and thus the power stripped away.