Yellen "Not Another Financial Crisis in Our Lifetimes" Warns of "Gigantic Holes"

No New Financial Crisis in 'Our Lifetimes'

Flashback June 27, 2017: Fed's Yellen Expects No New Financial Crisis in 'Our Lifetimes'

“Would I say there will never, ever be another financial crisis?” Yellen said at a question-and-answer event in London. “You know probably that would be going too far but I do think we’re much safer and I hope that it will not be in our lifetimes and I don’t believe it will be,” she said.

Yellen Now Sees "Gigantic Holes", Few Tools

Flash Forward December 11, 2018: Yellen Warns of Another Potential Financial crisis: 'Gigantic Holes in the System'

Former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen told a New York audience she fears there could be another financial crisis because banking regulators have seen reductions in their authority to address panics and because of the current push to deregulate.

"I think things have improved, but then I think there are gigantic holes in the system," Yellen said Monday night in a discussion moderated by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman at CUNY. "The tools that are available to deal with emerging problems are not great in the United States."

Yellen cited leverage loans as an area of concern, something also mentioned by the current Fed leadership. She said regulators can only address such problems at individual banks not throughout the financial system. The former fed chair, now a scholar at the Brookings Institution, said there remains an agenda of unfinished regulation. "I'm not sure we're working on those things in the way we should, and then there remain holes, and then there's regulatory pushback. So I do worry that we could have another financial crisis.''

Discussing the history of the Fed's response to the crisis, Yellen said the Fed "probably could have done more" quantitative easing but was held back in part by public criticism of the Fed's bond-buying program. "At the margin, I think that was something that concerned people about pushing asset purchases a lot further."

Quite the Tune Change

When you are in charge of the outhouse, you sing its plumbing praises. When you give speeches for money, you mention the stench.