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Weekly Commentary: Chronicling for Posterity 

Weekly Commentary: Chronicling for Posterity 

Janet Yellen’s Wednesday news conference was her final as Fed chair. Dr. Yellen has a long and distinguished career as an economist and public servant. Her four-year term at the helm of the Federal Reserve is almost universally acclaimed. History, however, will surely treat her less kindly. Yellen has been a central figure in inflationist dogma and a fateful global experiment in radical monetary stimulus. In her four years at the helm, the Yellen Fed failed to tighten financial conditions despite asset inflation and speculative excess beckoning for policy normalization.

Ben Bernanke has referred to the understanding of the forces behind the Great Depression as “the holy grail of economics.” When today’s historic global Bubble bursts, the “grail” quest will shift to recent decades. Yellen’s comments are worthy of chronicling for posterity.

CNBC’s Steve Liesman: “Every day it seems we look at the stock market, it goes up triple digits in the Dow Jones. To what extent are there concerns at the Federal Reserve about current market valuations? And do they now or should they, do you think, if we keep going on the trajectory, should that animate monetary policy?”

Chair Yellen: “OK, so let me start, Steve, with the stock market generally. I mean, of course, the stock market has gone up a great deal this year. And we have in recent months characterized the general level of asset valuations as elevated. What that reflects is simply the assessment that looking at price-earnings ratios and comparable metrics for other assets other than equities, we see ratios that are in the high end of historical ranges. And so that’s worth pointing out.

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