Consider the source:

In a Bloomberg story, Fed Officials Endorse ‘Big Stimulus’ to Battle U.S. Recession, we read: (emp add)

Federal Reserve officials, after taking the historic step of cutting the benchmark interest rate to as low as zero, are calling for greater government spending to help revive the U.S. economy.

San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen said yesterday at an economics conference in San Francisco that “it’s worth pulling out all the stops” with an economic recovery package. Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Fed, told the same gathering he believes a “big stimulus is appropriate.”

Janet Yellen is not anybody you'd want to pay attention to.

From this blog's June post from last year:

Ben Bernanke (via Calculated Risk): (emp add)

Although the severity of the financial stresses became apparent only in August, several longer-term developments served as prologue for the recent turmoil and helped bring us to the current situation.

The first of these was the U.S. housing boom, which began in the mid-1990s and picked up steam around 2000. Between 1996 and 2005, house prices nationwide increased about 90 percent. During the years from 2000 to 2005 alone, house prices increased by roughly 60 percent--far outstripping the increases in incomes and general prices ...

Janet Yelen of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (in her October 2007 speech at the Omni hotel in Los Angeles, printed in the Winter 2007 edition of the Town Hall Journal - not affiliated with townhall.com): (emp add)

Here in California, the rise and fall of house prices has been a lot like the nation's, only more so. In 2004 and 2005, many homeowners gleeflully watched the meter tick up and up on their house values. I know I did.

Yellen was a cheerleader of the housing bubble. She should not be a Fed president. She should not be giving advice on financial policy. She should resign. (So should Bernanke, et al)


posted by Quiddity at 1/05/2009 12:01:00 AM