The emphasis placed on the various elements of the policy mandate by the Board assumes great importance. The President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond in the mid-1980s, Robert Black, stated that "an excessive preoccupation with current conditions can lead to policy actions that destabilize the economy rather than stabilize it" (Black, 1984, p. 5). Black was promoting a long-range policy objective approach for the system, as opposed to the short-range perspective that had characterized the Board's policy-making activities in the early-1980s.
Black also held that the mandate for the system is far too broad to serve "as a practical guide to monetary policy" (Black, 1984, p. 7). Black thought that the mandate should be narrowed significantly. Others observers have agreed that the mandate often seems to be self-defeating. Marvin Goodfriend, also associated with the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, contended that attempts by the Federal Reserve to manage interest rates required the agency, in essence, to "give up contro
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