Transcript: REED: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Chairman Powell, for your great work. Senator Cortez Masto raised the issue of housing and for families all across the country, particularly my home state of Rhode Island, this is one of the biggest forms of inflation they're seeing. It's been reported the housing prices year over year have gone up 20%. Rent nationwide in January rose 14% in 2021 -- the last numbers we have. I had school principals in yesterday and they were commenting about some of their families have to leave, the working class community of Rhode Island, because they can't afford the housing, and this isn’t luxury housing -- to go into the poorer neighborhoods just to have some shelter. And I'm afraid there's another factor that will really exacerbate what's going on and that is private equity and Wall Street have decided they're going to buy up as many homes as they can. And that disrupts what we assume is the typical housing market for both rental, i.e., wealthy small owners have rental properties in the state. They have a relationship with their tenants. When it comes to homes, you buy a starter house and you move up and you sell it, and these are families through a realtor selling it. Now we have the big machines that are just buying up houses, throwing people out, and I that's essentially going to sneak up on us like a lot of other crises in the past. What you're going to do in your authority is address the demand side of the economy. This is really a supply side issue, I would assume you would agree. POWELL: Yes. REED: But if we do not address it, we will see continued inflation in housing and continued problems, and that's contributing significantly to the overall inflation rate. Is that accurate? POWELL: I think in housing you've got -- it's land, labor, lots, materials, and very strong demand. All of those are scarce and it's very strong demand hitting and so that's why you're seeing prices go up. REED: Will the interest rate increases, do you think, affect demand for housing? POWELL: I expect they will, yes. It's a very interest-rate-sensitive sector. REED: Home ownership, in terms of rental housing, that typically because of the supply shortage, will be passed on to the renter, I would assume. POWELL: Yes. REED: We have a problem that affects families all through this country, and one of the consequences of what you're going to do raising prices slightly, but we have to deal with it and that's on the supply side. I know that's not your bailiwick. We're talking in general terms about inflation, and if we don't get a handle on housing inflation, the American people will still be -- and particularly the lower income working families will be hammered by this. I hope we can come together on the fiscal side and do something that's appropriate.