The initial impression ... was of a chairman who did not want to shock the markets. The general tenor of the prepared remarks was that he would not take any chances with inflation, while retaining the risk management approach of his predecessor.

General Newton was our hero, ... And, when the chairman said he strongly supported the motion — boy, that was a great relief.

We cannot begin to quantify the potential damage in terms of gross domestic product, but a realistic scenario might be GDP declines in the tens of percent. In the case of slower growing economies such as Europe or Japan, a decade's economic growth could be wiped out.

When I first did Woodstock many, many years ago, my initial impression when I went to California to look at the rushes . . . was I was appalled. I knew the performance was OK, but the visual of the crowd walking away in the mud and the way they cut it together was kind of depressing,

Not a bad debut,

It's not just economically. The whole fabric and tenor of their lives is different.