Janet Yellen Quotes

Ducks are practically defenseless, and as a result, they have many predators. There are foxes, coyotes, wolves, raccoons, bobcats, hawks, and Janet Yellen.

If we understand how a person’s body influences risk taking, we can learn how to better manage risk takers. We can also recognize that mistakes governments have made have contributed to excessive risk taking. Consider the most important risk manager of them all — the Federal Reserve. Over the past 20 years, the Fed has pioneered a new technique of influencing Wall Street. Where before the Fed shrouded its activities in secrecy, it now informs the street in as clear terms as possible of what it intends to do with short-term interest rates, and when. Janet L. Yellen, the chairwoman of the Fed, declared this new transparency, called forward guidance, a revolution; Ben S. Bernanke, her predecessor, claimed it reduced uncertainty and calmed the markets. But does it really calm the markets? Or has eliminating uncertainty in policy spread complacency among the financial community and actually helped inflate market bubbles?

THE Federal Reserve is “the most transparent central bank to my knowledge in the world,” claims its chairwoman, Janet Yellen.

Janet Yellen, Fed chair, on Tuesday sent a frisson through the markets by telling Congress that some asset valuations looked stretched. She also warned that if the labour market continued to improve faster than the Fed had anticipated, then the first rises in rates would come earlier than now expected.

Janet Yellen wants to have inflation of at least 2%. Well, even at 2%, every ten years you lose 20% of the value of your money. How do you prevent that? Invest your money in equities to stay ahead of inflation, and hopefully above that you’ll get 5, 6, 7% growth.

I am describing the outlook that I see as most likely, but based on many years of making economic projections, I can assure you that any specific projection I write down will turn out to be wrong, perhaps markedly so.” —JANET YELLEN

Reich would soon back a request from Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide’s white-haired, unnaturally tanned CEO. Mozilo wanted an exemption from the Section 23A rules that prevented Countrywide’s holding company from tapping the discount window through a savings institution it owned. Sheila and the FDIC were justifiably skeptical, as was Janet Yellen at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, in whose district Countrywide’s headquarters were located. Lending indirectly to Countrywide would be risky. It might well already be insolvent and unable to pay us back. The day after the discount rate cut, Don Kohn relayed word that Janet was recommending a swift rejection of Mozilo’s request for a 23A exemption. She believed, Don said, that Mozilo “is in denial about the prospects for his company and it needs to be sold.” Countrywide found its reprieve in the form of a confidence-boosting $2 billion equity investment from Bank of America on August 22—not quite the sale that Janet thought was needed, but the first step toward an eventual acquisition by Bank of America. Countrywide formally withdrew its request for a 23A exemption on Thursday August 30 as I was flying to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to speak at the Kansas City Fed’s annual economic symposium. The theme of the conference, chosen long before, was “Housing, Housing Finance, and Monetary Policy.