Our takeaway on Janet Yellen’s speech is three-fold:
- We paraphrase: “Wise regulation, which is mostly now in place globally, will ensure that future financial crises will not billow out of control.” Wow, I didn’t realize that until 2010 the world didn’t have any regulators—no wonder why we have had periodic problems.
- Mrs. Yellen seems oblivious to enormous distortive effects of her institution’s suppression of interest rates below “market.”
- A lot of people are counting on the Federal Reserve. We wouldn’t.