U.S. News
Treasury secretary admits she was “wrong” to downplay inflation threat [Video]
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
- U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she was “wrong” when she said last year that inflation posed a short-term threat.
- In an interview with CNN, Yellen said: “I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take.”
- Yellen was with President Biden when he met with Federal Reserve Jerome Powell at the White House on Tuesday.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Tuesday that she was wrong with her assessment last year about the inflation threat. She noted, however, that President Joe Biden’s top priority is taming price hikes and backing the Federal Reserve’s actions to achieve that goal.
In a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer, Yellen was asked whether she made a mistake in downplaying the inflation threat in public statements she made last year. She answered: “I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take.”
“As I mentioned, there have been unanticipated and large shocks to the economy that have boosted energy and food prices and supply bottlenecks that have affected our economy badly that I didn’t at the time fully understand,” Yellen.
Yellen noted that the shocks range from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to China’s recent COVID-19 lockdowns.
She added that President Biden “believes strongly and is supportive of the independence of the Fed to take the steps that are necessary” to reduce inflation. The secretary also noted that unemployment was also nearly as low as it has ever been since the second world war.
Later in the day, a Treasury spokesperson explained that Yellen was emphasizing that “there have been shocks to the economy that have exacerbated inflationary pressures which couldn’t have been foreseen 18 months ago, including Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine, multiple successive variants of COVID, and lockdowns in China.”
On Tuesday, Biden had a meeting with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and noted that he “respects the independence of the Federal Reserve,” a White House official said.
According to Yellen, the Biden administration was taking action by lowering the cost of prescription drugs and health care and by pushing proposals in Congress to boost the use of renewable energy.
Yellen said that oil prices remained high, but she noted that a recent decline in core inflation data was encouraging,
“We can’t rule out further shocks,” Yellen said.
Source: Reuters
Bobby Cooper
June 1, 2022 at 6:45 pm
I really don’t believe her statement. She is an educated and intelligent financial person. I believe she knew from the beginning but played politics in backing the many false statements President Biden has made. Her position should be above political partisanship. In fact, how can the public believe a word she and, especially, President has made given their history of lying!
Everett
June 1, 2022 at 7:02 pm
Sorry Bobby Cooper, but millions of democrats claim they are educated and intelligent. However, they’re still communist, fasist, anti-speech, anti-Constitutional, anti-life, anti-GOD, ant-American morons. Everyone on the right was vehemently telling everyone that if Obiden (or ANY democrat) won, THIS WOULD HAPPEN!! Well, IT DID!! Democrats are the real “evil” in America for the last 150 years! Slavery, abortions, record fuel prices, food shortages, men in women’s restrooms and sports, secret sex change operations on children, taxes, more taxes, higher taxes, speech censorship, citizen spying, record inflation, business killing regulations, highest crime rate in democrat run cities and voter fraud. Did I leave anything out?
Dan Soboti
June 1, 2022 at 8:03 pm
Well stated
Kent Robinson
June 1, 2022 at 8:10 pm
Good review of the Demorats and Demwits
Mike
June 2, 2022 at 7:55 pm
I would bet you did leave a lot out. Much of what the democrats have done is so clandestine and underhanded that you couldn’t possibly have kept track of all of it.
Tony
June 3, 2022 at 5:34 am
I can’t think of anything you left out but I agree with 95% of what you said. Most Democrats are wearing blinders and think that the Democrats are for the working people which they used to be. But now they are trying to put a dictator ship into our country. I also think that it is time for parents to take control of their kids rather than expecting everybody else to control their kids and let them run wild. Every time a child gets shot at one to 3 o’clock in the morning you wonder why they are out gallivanting on the streets and not home with their parents like they’re supposed to be. Where are the parents. You see them when one of their kids to get shot or killed crime all my kid was a good kid but yet you let them run wild it’s the parents fault not the public.
Leslie
June 1, 2022 at 7:24 pm
Out right lies from the beginning from everyone in this administration!
All the lies and corruption, not one of these POS will be held accountable!
Clinton, two drunks Nancy & Paul, Obama, Schumer, Hunter, Joke Biden, the list is endless, not one of “we the people” could pull off this kind of shit and get away with it, the courts would string us up.
They have corrupted judges, lawyers & “”jury of THEIR peers”” to help them be above our laws.
Our Republic needs help now to get America livable again!
Hold these people accountable for their actions.
MDI
June 1, 2022 at 10:35 pm
Unfortunately this once sovereign nation is on a downward spiral that will be difficult to stop. There is no positive political solution to our chaotic and corrupted situation. I think only a benevolent ‘strong man’ will be able to begin to turn this ship around. There will be a long period of suspending normal society as most of us have known before anything rational is re-established.