Task forces.

That’s a summary of what, forgive me, was a somewhat farcical debut for Kevin Warsh, who on Wednesday afternoon in the US made himself a meme.

After unveiling a stripped-down FOMC statement devoid entirely of forward guidance, Warsh regaled the financial media with a plan to appoint five task forces he says will enhance institutional competence on the way to reclaiming for the Fed lost credibility.

Over the course of the ensuing 45 minutes, Warsh referred to his task forces more than a dozen times, repeatedly availing himself of a cringeworthy tagline when confronted with difficult questions: “We have a task force for that.”

The sly grin Warsh donned throughout suggested the memeification risk associated with leaning so hard, so early, into an organizational problem-solving cliché, wasn’t completely lost on the new Fed chair. But… well, suffice to say he’s “Task Force Kevin” from now on.

So, they better deliver. The task forces, I mean. As noted, there are five of them, one for examining the Fed’s approach to communications, one for balance sheet policy, one for assessing the use of, and reliance on, existing data sources, another for analyzing AI, productivity and jobs and one for the inflation framework.

These expert panels haven’t been staffed yet, let alone convened, Warsh appeared to indicate. The process of standing up the task forces will begin posthaste, though. It’s all about finding the “best people” from a range of backgrounds, thereby ensuring a diversity of viewpoints. (Where have we heard that before?)

The end goal, Warsh said, is to create a Fed that’s “clear-eyed about its mission and fit for purpose.” He suggested there are no sacred cows. Everything’s up for review, including and especially the nature and frequency of Fed communications, and perhaps even the regularity of policy meetings.

When asked if the 2% inflation target will be revisited, Warsh said not until the Fed proves it can achieve price stability as defined by 2%. But he also reiterated that he cares far more about what’s on the left of the decimal than the right, a talking point he’s returned to again and again over the past year.

Asked by Colby Smith “how patient” the Fed can afford to be with inflation running as quick as it is currently, Warsh reminded her that “We’ve dropped forward guidance.”

When Smith wondered whether Warsh thinks Fed policy’s actually holding the economy back, he said it depends. In housing, current policy settings probably are restrictive, he assessed, before conceding it’d be “hard” to say the same about financial markets.

At least for the purposes of Wednesday’s session, the market viewed the new dot plot — which showed half of meeting participants expect to hike rates this year — as tantamount to forward guidance. Two-year yields rose sharply, and traders aggressively priced more tightening.

That raises obvious questions about the dot plot’s future under a Fed chair who doesn’t want to issue forward guidance. When asked about the possibility that the dots’ days are numbered, Warsh said — drumroll — “We’ve got a task force for that.”

“I did not submit a dot,” he went on, stating the obvious (the dot plot was short one dot on Wednesday). “For me it’s not helpful.” During the same exchange he hinted that press conferences might eventually be fewer and far between.

“Press conferences are useful, but when you have one, you want to make sure you have something to say,” Warsh remarked. No arguments there.

Warsh also suggested — and this is implicit in the decision to jettison forward guidance — that he’s keen to extricate the Fed from the so-caled “hall of mirrors.”

Financial markets provide critical signals to monetary policy, he said, but those signals are unreliable if all they reflect is investors’ guesses about how the Fed will react to incoming information.

No arguments there either. Just as long as Warsh is prepared for the consequences: Asset prices will almost surely be more volatile in a regime where the Fed stops dialoguing with markets.

When asked about the front-end selloff playing out on Bloomberg terminals all over the world, Warsh declined to comment. Later, he said he’s not concerned about the short-term market reaction to Fed regime change.

And hey, if things get out of hand, Warsh can always just establish a new task force. As one reader joked, “we’re gonna need a task force to keep track of the task forces.”