EDITOR'S NOTE: In an interview on CNN’s Situation Report, Wolf Blitzer fires off a stinging volley when asking Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen “Why should Americans trust [Biden] to address this problem (inflation) now when he’s been getting it so wrong for a year”? This question, a seemingly rhetorical one, could be posed to Yellen herself who, we all remember, preceded Jay Powell’s term as Fed Chair. The same goes for the Fed. Janet Yellen’s answer to Blitzer, blaming their failure to anticipate inflation on “shocks” to the economy, is not only shamefully inadequate but also downright misleading. The current inflation crisis is arguably a twofold problem: it’s a monetary problem (too much money printed into the system) compounded by a tail risk problem (the war in Ukraine). The Fed had full control over the monetary issue that in large part caused the current mess. Its overconfidence or sheer arrogance got the best of them, and now we’re all paying for it, literally. Second, if economic matters entailed varying degrees of unknown or secondary risk, which anybody in the right mind would say yes it does, then failing to prepare for shocks and tail risk barely gets a proverbial pass. Yet Yellen, again, the former Fed Chair, claims she “didn’t fully understand” supply bottlenecks; that she and others who exerted influence over economic policy somehow got it wrong on inflation. What!? Such tail risk factors in the economy happen often enough to warrant preparation. It’s called responsible risk management. Watch the video below and ask yourself “how is such ignorance at the highest levels of government even possible”?
During an interview aired on Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted that she “was wrong” about inflation and that while “unanticipated and large shocks to the economy” are a part of the reason, she also “didn’t fully understand” supply bottlenecks that have hurt the economy.
Watch the full interview here.
Yellen reacted to clips of her downplaying the inflation threat in 2021 by stating, “I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take. As I mentioned, there have been unanticipated and large shocks to the economy that have boosted energy and food prices, and supply bottlenecks that have affected our economy badly that I didn’t — at the time, didn’t fully understand. But we recognize that now the Federal Reserve is taking the steps that it needs to take. It’s up to them to decide what to do. And for our part, President Biden is focused on supplementing what the Fed does with actions we can take to lower the cost that Americans face for important expenditures they have in their budgets. Prescription drugs is one example, healthcare costs…utility bills, if Congress is willing to pass some of the proposals to boost the use of nonrenewables, I think that can serve to bring down an important cost that households face. He realizes, we all realize what an important and huge burden inflation is placing on American households.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
Originally published on Breitbart.
