Journalist Steven Beckner, who has covered monetary policy since the beginning of the Greenspan years, has written a useful book that goes beyond the regular elliptical utterances of the Fed chairman. Reviewed in "The Region" by Kevin L. Kliesen, Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The formulation of monetary policy has been compared to making sausage-what counts is the final product, not how it is made or, heaven forbid, what ingredients are used. This characterization, while perhaps