Larry Summers Fed Nomination Would Bypass ‘Steady’ And ‘Right’ Janet Yellen
Posted in: Today's ChiliWASHINGTON — Leading Democrats are struggling with the idea that President Barack Obama may actually nominate economist Larry Summers to head the Federal Reserve. If he does, he’d pass over Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen, who saw the warning signs of the 2008 financial collapse, for Summers, whose deregulatory advocacy as treasury secretary contributed to it.
Summers’ critics typically cite his role in the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall financial regulations and the 2000 deregulation of the derivatives market as key contributors to the financial collapse of 2008. But Yellen accurately read signs of bank trouble before the crash, when she served as president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve.
“She’s steady, she’s been right and she hasn’t ignored the real economy and the role of employment,” former Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.), now president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, said Wednesday. “The reputation she has is as someone who has certainly been more interested in the full employment side of the mission than just the anti-inflationary side.” Yellen pushed for transparency at the Fed before it was popular and ate with fellow workers in the cafeteria, Perriello noted.
Post a Comment