As Crisis Loomed, Yellen Made Wry and Forceful Calls for Action.
As the world’s financial system stood on the verge of collapse in October 2008, Janet L. Yellen was not even a full voting member of the Federal Reserve’s policy-making committee, but she was not shy about admonishing her colleagues for not acting faster.
“We need to do much more and the sooner the better,” Ms. Yellen said at a two-day meeting in late October, after the Fed had helped bail out the banks. As president of the San Francisco regional Fed bank, Ms. Yellen attended all the meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee that year but had rotated out of the circle that actually voted on its actions.
After months in which some members of the Fed committee resisted taking steps to prop up the economy, Ms. Yellen lectured her colleagues: “Frankly, it is time for all hands on deck when it comes to our policy tools.”
New transcripts of the Fed’s meeting in 2008, based on recordings made at the time, provide one of the most revealing views to date of Ms. Yellen, who was sworn in earlier this month as chairwoman of the central bank.
But even as she pushed for more aggressive policies to deal with the financial crisis and the economic downturn, Ms. Yellen also displayed an ability to disarm her critics with a sort of gallows humor, even in the darkest days.
“In the run-up to Halloween, we have had a witch’s brew of news,” she said to the laughter of her colleagues, before quickly apologizing for her sarcasm.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/22/business/economy/as-crisis-loomed-in-2008-yellen-called-for-action-and-told-jokes.html?hp&_r=0
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