Janet Yellen should resign – and more
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By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
From the Atlantic, June 10, 2022, “Last week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen did something unusual for a Washington policy maker: She admitted that she’d made a mistake. In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about the U.S.’s persistently high inflation rate, Yellen said, of her predictions last year that prices would stay under control, ‘I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take.’”
There was a time when such an admission would be closely followed with a resignation letter.
No more.
Yellen did tremendous harm to the U.S. economy with her misjudgment. She should resign, but she won’t.
Thomas Sowell, who I mentioned last week, said something like this (I am paraphrasing): If an engineer builds a bridge that falls, their career is ruined; if an elite makes a statement harming society or the economy, there is no punishment.
A bridge is a small, local disaster. Harm to society or the economy are much, much bigger disasters.
I saw a title to a column last week that I wish I had thought of: “When is our government going to get serious again?”
This captures our current conditions perfectly. While our government plays around with silly, inconsequential subjects, other governments around the world (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and more) are seriously executing deadly games that have long term consequences.
The same is true of many of our institutions of higher learning. While they coddle crybabies, the U.S. falls behind intellectually.
Food, shelter and clothing are serious business. So is safety. And for many of us, so is energy in the forms we can afford and use it.
We have been so financially rich for so long that we have concluded that we can be ethically and morally poor without consequence. This foolishness is testing our security of supply for basic needs. And this appears to be the year that the truth is revealed.
And speaking of truth being revealed, many of us speculate as to who is providing guidance to President Biden. One of the most interesting speculations I have seen on this topic is that the answer is Hunter Biden.
The New York Post suggested on June 8 that Hunter Biden is the president’s closest adviser. The Post states “Friends of Hunter say he discusses the finer points of Ukraine policy and other matters of state around the dinner table with his father on his regular weekend visits home to Delaware or Camp David.”
The article goes on to state, “It is no coincidence that Hunter’s new ‘sugar brother,’ L.A. entertainment lawyer Kevin Morris, formerly represented Hollywood actor Matthew McConaughey, who played a starring role at the White House podium this week to urge gun control in the wake of the school massacre in his hometown of Uvalde, Texas.
“Morris, a close McConaughey friend and adviser, has lent Hunter more than $2 million to pay overdue tax bills and pays his $20,000 rent in Malibu. Morris also acts as a sort of life coach, advising Hunter on everything from how to respond to the Delaware grand jury investigation into his overseas business dealings and how to structure his art sales to how to rehabilitate his reputation and retaliate against his detractors.”
We can’t take ourselves as a nation seriously if our country is being run by people such as this.
Should Janet Yellen resign? Absolutely – and she should be followed by a parade of others who make a joke of the serious jobs needing done in Washington. Their bridges have fallen down.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.
HCP columnist
From the Atlantic, June 10, 2022, “Last week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen did something unusual for a Washington policy maker: She admitted that she’d made a mistake. In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about the U.S.’s persistently high inflation rate, Yellen said, of her predictions last year that prices would stay under control, ‘I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take.’”
There was a time when such an admission would be closely followed with a resignation letter.
No more.
Yellen did tremendous harm to the U.S. economy with her misjudgment. She should resign, but she won’t.
Thomas Sowell, who I mentioned last week, said something like this (I am paraphrasing): If an engineer builds a bridge that falls, their career is ruined; if an elite makes a statement harming society or the economy, there is no punishment.
A bridge is a small, local disaster. Harm to society or the economy are much, much bigger disasters.
I saw a title to a column last week that I wish I had thought of: “When is our government going to get serious again?”
This captures our current conditions perfectly. While our government plays around with silly, inconsequential subjects, other governments around the world (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and more) are seriously executing deadly games that have long term consequences.
The same is true of many of our institutions of higher learning. While they coddle crybabies, the U.S. falls behind intellectually.
Food, shelter and clothing are serious business. So is safety. And for many of us, so is energy in the forms we can afford and use it.
We have been so financially rich for so long that we have concluded that we can be ethically and morally poor without consequence. This foolishness is testing our security of supply for basic needs. And this appears to be the year that the truth is revealed.
And speaking of truth being revealed, many of us speculate as to who is providing guidance to President Biden. One of the most interesting speculations I have seen on this topic is that the answer is Hunter Biden.
The New York Post suggested on June 8 that Hunter Biden is the president’s closest adviser. The Post states “Friends of Hunter say he discusses the finer points of Ukraine policy and other matters of state around the dinner table with his father on his regular weekend visits home to Delaware or Camp David.”
The article goes on to state, “It is no coincidence that Hunter’s new ‘sugar brother,’ L.A. entertainment lawyer Kevin Morris, formerly represented Hollywood actor Matthew McConaughey, who played a starring role at the White House podium this week to urge gun control in the wake of the school massacre in his hometown of Uvalde, Texas.
“Morris, a close McConaughey friend and adviser, has lent Hunter more than $2 million to pay overdue tax bills and pays his $20,000 rent in Malibu. Morris also acts as a sort of life coach, advising Hunter on everything from how to respond to the Delaware grand jury investigation into his overseas business dealings and how to structure his art sales to how to rehabilitate his reputation and retaliate against his detractors.”
We can’t take ourselves as a nation seriously if our country is being run by people such as this.
Should Janet Yellen resign? Absolutely – and she should be followed by a parade of others who make a joke of the serious jobs needing done in Washington. Their bridges have fallen down.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.