Page 4 - aruba-today-20170826

A4 U.S. NEWS
Saturday 26 auguSt 2017

Yellen defends bank regulations
passed after 2008 financial crisis

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER forts by Republicans, in-
AP Economics Writer cluding President Donald
JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming Trump, to scrap the 2010
(AP) — Federal Reserve Dodd-Frank law as a threat
Chair Janet Yellen on Fri- to the economy.
day emphatically defend- The Fed chair refrained
ed the web of regulations from remarking on the state
the Fed helped enact af- of the economy or on the
ter the 2008 financial crisis, possible future course of
saying it helped restore the interest rates. Investors had
banking system’s health been awaiting her speech
and disputing criticism that for any signals about what
the rules have hurt lending. the Fed might do when it
Yellen said the Fed is pre- meets next month.
pared to adjust the regu- The central bank has been
lations as needed to help gradually raising its bench-
financial institutions. mark short-term rate, but Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, talks with Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank,
But in a speech to an an- most Fed watchers expect and Haruhiko Kuroda, head of the Bank of Japan, during a break at the central bankers conference
nual conference of central no rate hike before De- at Jackson Hole, Wyo., Friday, Aug. 25, 2017. The conference, in its 41st year, is sponsored by the
bankers in Jackson Hole, cember at the earliest. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
she implicitly rejected ef- Overhanging Yellen’s (AP Photo/Martin Crutsinger)
speech was the possibility
that it marks her final ap-
pearance in Jackson Hole
as Fed chair.
Her term as chair will end
in February, and Trump has
made clear he is consid-
ering replacing her. One
candidate he has men-
tioned is Gary Cohn, a
former Goldman Sachs se-
nior executive who leads
Trump’s National Econom-
ic Council.
Some saw Yellen’s forceful
defense Friday of the regu-
latory structure imposed on
banks since the 2008 crisis
as further lessening the like-
lihood that Trump will reap-
point her.
In her speech, Yellen noted
that the U.S. and global fi-
nancial systems were “in a
dangerous place 10 years
ago,” with severe strains
that led to the collapse of
investment bank Lehman
Brothers, the government
takeover of mortgage gi-
ants Fannie Mae and Fred-
die Mac and the require-
ment that taxpayers bail
out the largest banks.q