Thursday, October 10, 2013

Running The Printing Press From The Faculty Lounge

I can't say I'm surprised at any of this.

The incoming Fed chairwoman, Janet Yellen, is a big fan of Weimar and Zimbabwe and fully intends to follow their lead to prosperity. She's been one of the loudest voices on the Fed for printing more and more and more money. If you care to look deeper into the horror that is Janet Yellen, the New York Times has a laudatory profile of her. Here are a few tidbits.
BERKELEY, Calif. — When the economists Janet L. Yellen and George A. Akerlof hired a baby sitter for their son in the early 1980s, they decided to pay more than the going wage. They reasoned that a happier baby sitter would provide better care.

The decision not only attracted a series of excellent sitters, it also inspired the couple, both professors at the University of California at Berkeley, to develop a new theory of the labor market that remains an influential justification for the Federal Reserve’s ability to stimulate job growth.
Awesome. So she learned that in a fatcat, ivory tower, two-income household she could overpay for occasional, menial labor and that led her to grand theories of business. No need to run a, you know, actual business or anything, she's hired people!
Ms. Yellen is also a more assertive leader than Mr. Bernanke and appears less averse to conflict. While both encourage open debate and seek to make decisions by consensus, Ms. Yellen has been a more vocal and persistent advocate for her own views. Mr. Bernanke has allowed Fed officials to air their views freely, while Ms. Yellen has expressed concern that the cacophony undermines the Fed’s effectiveness by sowing confusion about the direction of policy.

“I think she is fundamentally committed to continuity, that we still have a problem and we still need monetary policy to be doing a fair amount,” said Christina D. Romer, a former chairwoman of Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and a close friend of Ms. Yellen. “There’s a toughness there. And I think there’s a toughness to her that there isn’t in Bernanke.”
 Double awesome. She's authoritarian.

I look forward to her analysis and response when Japan collapses.

And now, a video from Janet Yellen's babysitter's live-in boyfriend*, someone who is all about the Yellen Theory of Investing.


* - Well, I think that's him. I didn't look too closely. I was mesmerized by the beauty of high-denomination Zimbabwe banknotes.

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