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Janet Yellen

Historical Figure

Janet Yellen

b. 1946

American economist and government official (born 1946)

Modern

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"On Raising the Debt Ceiling" — 2023

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Biography

Janet Louise Yellen is an American economist who served as the 78th United States secretary of the treasury from 2021 to 2025. She also served as chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018. She was the first woman to hold either position, and has also led the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Yellen is the Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor of Business Administration and Economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Timeline

The story of Janet Yellen, told in moments.

1977 Life

Married economist George Akerlof after meeting him at a Federal Reserve conference. They co-authored papers. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001.

2014 Event

Sworn in as Chair of the Federal Reserve. First woman to lead the Fed in its 100-year history. Guided the U.S. through the end of quantitative easing and the first rate hikes since the 2008 crisis.

2021 Event

Confirmed as the 78th Secretary of the Treasury. First woman in that role too. She'd already been the first woman to lead both the Fed and the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

In Their Own Words (12)

In a matter of days, millions of Americans could be strapped for cash.”

remarks to the Senate Banking Committee according to "Here’s what the debt limit standoff means for you (September 28, 2021), 2021

So, it is not reporting of individual transactions or anything of the like. And it would be a simple thing for banks and other payment providers to provide along with the other information they’re already providing.

"Yellen defends IRS rule requiring banks to report all transactions over $600" (October 5, 2021), 2021

An outstanding choice. Tough, smart and principled

Elizabeth Warren in TRANSITION 2020 progressives praise Yellen but could soon clash with Biden’s Treasury pick published November 27, 2020, 2020

Well, what happened, apparently, was that while the Dodd-Frank Act was being rewritten by the Congress, Janet Yellen changed the wording around and she said, “Well, how do we define a general liquidity crisis?” Well, it doesn't mean what you and I mean by a liquidity crisis, meaning the whole economy is illiquid. She said, “If five banks need to borrow, then it's a general liquidity crisis.” Well, the problem, as she points out, is it's the same three big banks, again and again, and again and again. And these are not short-term loans. She points out that they were 14-day loans; there were longer loans. And they were rolled over, not overnight loans, not day-to-day loans, not even week-to-week loans. But month after month, the Fed was pumping money into JP Morgan and Citibank and Goldman. But then she points out that, or at least she told me, that these really weren't Citibank and Morgan Chase; it was to their trading affiliates. Now this is exactly what Dodd-Frank was supposed to prevent.... So I think the reason that the newspapers are going quiet on this is the Fed broke the law. And it wants to continue breaking the law.

Michael Hudson, quoted by Ben Norton, in Economist Michael Hudson explains inflation crisis and Fed's secretive $4.5 trillion bank bailout, Geopolitical Economy Report Subtitle: Economist Michael Hudson discusses the global inflation crisis and how the US Federal Reserve quietly (and apparently illegally) bailed out big banks in 2019 with $4.5 trillion of emergency repo loans (8 Jan 2022), 2019

O.K., so what does standard new classical economics say? You should cut the wages of everybody who works for you. Because there are all the people standing outside the factory gates, and they have the same skill set as the people who work for you. You should at least be willing, according to this view, if not to hire them, to say to your own workers, ‘If you don’t take a pay cut, I’m going to replace you with them.’ But one goes around, actually talks to firms, and you’ll find that no firm would do that.

2014

Artifacts (15)

The Fabulous Decade: Macroeconomic Lessons from the 1990s

The performance of the U.S. economy in the 1990s far outstripped expectations. Growth was surprisingly strong, unemployment fell to the lowest level in a generation, and yet inflation remained...

2001

by marriage with a Pollexfen, we have given a tongue to the sea cliffs

h personally and symbolically, his "country of the heart". So too did its location by the sea; John Yeats stated that "by marriage with a Pollexfen, we have given a tongue to the sea cliffs". The...

Works Talk

the tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul.

ed at last" was how another of his lovers described the event. Yeats was less sentimental and later remarked that "the tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul." The...

Works Talk

it seems to me that she [Gonne] brought into my life those days—for as yet I saw...

and she had a significant and lasting effect on his poetry and his life thereafter. In later years he admitted, "it seems to me that she [Gonne] brought into my life those days—for as yet I saw only...

Works Talk

If I had not made magic my constant study I could not have written a single word...

sation "The Ghost Club" (in 1911) and was influenced by the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. In 1892 Yeats wrote: "If I had not made magic my constant study I could not have written a single word of my...

Works Talk

We hope to find in Ireland an uncorrupted & imaginative audience trained to list...

cendancy of the playwright rather than the actor-manager à l'anglais". The group's manifesto, which Yeats wrote, declared, "We hope to find in Ireland an uncorrupted & imaginative audience trained to...

Works Talk

W. B. Yeats, 1865–1939

1943
Works Talk

Yeats: The Man and the Masks

1948
Works Talk

William Butler Yeats. Michigan State University Press

1962
Works Talk

A Preface to Yeats (2nd ed.). Routledge

1994
Works Talk

The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Wordsworth Poetry Library

1994
Works Talk

W. B. Yeats: A Life. Vol. I: The Apprentice Mage

1997
Works Talk

Willie Yeats & The Gonne-MacBrides. Westport Books

1997
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The Yeats Gonne MacBride Triangle. Westport Books

2000
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W. B. Yeats: A Life. Vol. II: The Arch-Poet 1915–1939

2003
Works Talk

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