Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Governor, there are a couple of areas I want to explore with you.
One thing I'd like some clarity on is this: You've explained that quantitative tightening is designed to reduce inflation, but you maintain that quantitative easing wasn't the cause of it. I want to bring you back to the testimony you gave on November 1 to the Senate, where you were asked a similar question about this and you went into interest rates. You said that quantitative easing was simply a tool of the bank to control interest rates.
The trouble I'm having is that there seems to be an inherent conflict between these two positions. How can you, on the one hand, say you're relying so heavily on quantitative tightening to get inflation under control, but you won't go so far as to say that it was quantitative easing, the creation of an expansion of the money supply, that was a major factor in causing inflation?