JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is defending the web of regulations the Fed helped enact after the 2008 financial crisis, saying it helped restore the banking system’s health and disputing criticism that the rules have hurt lending.
Yellen says the Fed is prepared to adjust the regulations as needed to help financial institutions. But she is implicitly rejecting efforts by Republicans including President Donald Trump to scrap the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act as a threat to the economy.
Speaking to an annual conference of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Yellen refrained from remarking on the state of the economy or the possible future course of interest rates. Investors had been awaiting Yellen’s speech for any signals about what the Fed might do when it meets next month.
Beside proposals to scrap Dodd-Frank, there have also been rumblings among Republicans to “reform” the Federal Reserve in a way that would allow Congress to micromanage it.
Just what we need, a bunch of clueless, innumerate yahoos who don’t believe in raising the debt ceiling controlling the Fed.