Although we work through financial markets, our goal is to help Main Street, not Wall Street.
Janet YellenRead
Policy makers should be compelled to take action given the serious costs of long-term unemployment when overall unemployment is already high. A week of unemployment is worse when it is experienced as part of a longer spell.
Interpretation
Long-term unemployment exacerbates suffering during periods of high overall unemployment.
Janet Yellen's quote highlights the urgency for policy makers to address the dire consequences of prolonged unemployment, especially when the general unemployment rate is already elevated. Long-term unemployment doesn’t just diminish a person's financial stability; it also harms their mental and emotional well-being, creating a cycle of disadvantage that is difficult to break.
In practice
Use this quote during a discussion on economic policy reforms.
Although we work through financial markets, our goal is to help Main Street, not Wall Street.
We need to keep in mind the well-established fact that the full effects of monetary policy are felt only after long lags. This means that policy makers cannot wait until they have achieved their objectives to begin adjusting policy.
A clear lesson of history is that a 'sine qua non' for sustained economic recovery following a financial crisis is a thoroughgoing repair of the financial system.
Transparency concerning the Federal Reserve's conduct of monetary policy is desirable because better public understanding enhances the effectiveness of policy. More important, however, is that transparent communications reflect the Federal Reserve's commitment to accountability within our democratic system of government.
For decades, the pace of technological change in manufacturing has outstripped that in the economy as a whole. And, so, firms - manufacturing firms - have found it easier to continue producing by - with - reducing their workforces.
Inequality has risen to the point that it seems to me worthwhile for the U.S. to seriously consider taking the risk of making our economy more rewarding for more of the people.
My premise is not to tax to destroy the wealth of the wealthy; it's to increase the wealth of the bottom and the middle class.
If the job of capitalism is to create wealth for those who put up the capital, no fund group comes close to Vanguard's success in serving its owners. So we're probably as far away from communism as is realistically possible.
Budget consolidation and economic growth are two sides of the same coin.
In the 1940s, economics started getting highly mathematical. It was basically because economists weren't smart enough to write down models of real behavior that they started writing down models of highly rational behavior - and they kind of forgot about humans.
Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by legislative action.
I'm quite worried about the fiscal imbalances that we've got and what that might mean in terms of financial crisis ahead.
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