Yellen Warns Against Erasing Regulations Made After Financial Crisis<br />Ms. Yellen said changes since the global financial crisis, which began a decade<br />ago, have significantly improved the resilience of the financial system.<br />“The events of the crisis demanded action, needed reforms were implemented<br />and these reforms have made the system safer,” Ms. Yellen said in remarks prepared for delivery Friday morning at an annual monetary policy conference here.<br />“Already, for some, memories of this experience may be fading — memories of just how costly the financial crisis was<br />and why certain steps were taken in response,” Ms. Yellen said.<br />Ms. Yellen rarely spoke about regulatory issues during the early years of her tenure as chairwoman,<br />but she has addressed the topic with regularity since Mr. Trump became president.<br />— Janet Yellen, the Federal Reserve chairwoman, delivered a broad rebuttal on Friday to Republican criticism<br />that financial regulation is impeding economic growth.<br />Gary D. Cohn, Mr. Trump’s chief economic adviser, whom Mr. Trump has described as a candidate<br />for Ms. Yellen’s job, is an architect of the administration’s regulatory plans.<br />Ms. Yellen said there was no clear evidence that increased regulation had been causing broad or deep reductions in the availability of loans,<br />but she said it was more difficult to assess whether there might be smaller impacts.
