How To Become A Fed Watcher, Step One

Read Janet Yellen's speeches. She's the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and a professor at my alma mater, Berkeley's Haas School of Business. But most importantly, she gives incredibly clear, understandable, and highly informative speeches. There is, I think, no better source for a broad, high-level understanding of the what's going on in the U.S. economy.

Her most recent speech is Prospects for the Economy (pdf).

The SF Fed also provides handy email notifications of speeches and other pubs. Hopefully they'll soon join the Richmond Fed and provide podcasts of Fed speeches.