The Jackson Hole Fed gathering

There's more than a little bit of irony that we're coming up on the four year anniversary of the Jackson Hole Fed gathering where former chairman Alan Greenspan was widely praised as the greatest central banker of all time as the housing bubble reached peak.

This Washington Post story from the other day tells of the upcoming confab.

This week, the news about the economy moves out west. With no major data on tap, the focus will be on Jackson Hole, Wyo., where the biggest event of the year for Federal Reserve insiders begins Thursday night.

The annual symposium is sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and includes every top Fed official and dozens of leading economists from universities, foreign central banks and private firms. (There are also a handful of reporters present, to blast word of the proceedings to the broader world.)

The topic this year is "Financial Stability and Macroeconomic Policy," appropriate for a conference that comes two years after the outbreak of a financial crisis and almost one year after that crisis deepened.

The event that will likely receive the most attention is a speech by Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke on Friday morning. Bernanke's talk is titled "Lessons from a Year of Crisis," and should include his recounting of the events of the last year and lessons from the experience for policy in the future. In contrast to his recent, highly visible appearances, this speech is not scheduled to be televised (a text will be published on the Fed's Web site, however).

Coming up are a few looks back at the Jackson Hole gathering from 2005.