While we were most eager to hear Bill Dudley's take on the shocking events out of China in the past 48 hours, we would be denied: DUDLEY SAYS WON'T COMMENT ON CHINESE CURRENCY POLICY ... although he did add the cryptic: DUDLEY: MAY NOT BE INAPPROPRIATE FOR YUAN TO ADJUST W/ECONOMY But what was the most disturbing soundbite out of the former Goldmanite and current head of the Fed's capital markets trading branch, was the following: DUDLEY: HOPEFULLY IN NEAR FUTURE FED ABLE TO RAISE RATES Compare that to Lockhart's enthusiasm just a few days ago: Lockhart (pre-China deval): "Liftoff is close" ... "very disposed" to Sept Dudley (post-deval): Can hopefully raise rates in "near future" — Jamie McGeever (@ReutersJamie) https://twitter.com/ReutersJamie/status/631458279198203904!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); And that's where we are now: the Fed's latest and greatest "strategy" for the future is a very simple one: hope.