'How'd You Get It So Wrong?': John Kennedy Grills Biden Federal Reserve Nominee On Inflation

in that thank you both thank you senator chester senator kennedy from louisiana is recognized thank you mr chairman uh governor director congratulations on your nomination uh governor i realize at the federal reserve that you have a big staff that advises you on inflation and based on their track record my guess is they also advised people to buy condos in las vegas in 2007. but you don't have to accept their their advice so with respect to your predictions on inflation how did you get it so wrong well uh senator thank you could you move closer to the mic for me yes of course thank you for your question senator you're welcome so i think you know nobody got the pandemic right um the pandemic is unprecedented but i'm asking you about inflation yeah so um i think as as uh forecasters private forecasters um certainly uh the forecasters um the scp the the whole committee we uh thought uh that perhaps uh we would see a more rapid resolution of the pandemic and the supply demand mismatches in particular in cars excuse me for interrupting but i don't have much time do you think you are you saying that inflation was caused by the pandemic so we certainly have seen um the perpetuation for instance of the delta variant uh leading to but are you saying that the inflation is caused by the pandemic i certainly think the supply demand imbalances that have been the biggest contributors um to the very high inflation we've seen are directly attributable to supply chain issues distortions in demand well but here's what troubles me about that um i would i'll agree that inflation is spreading but i don't see people going around coughing inflation on each other i think and i understand supply chains matter but so does the demand side and so does too much money chasing too few goods and and uh i don't think and i don't think any fair-minded person thinks that inflation is solely the result of the pandemic let me let me move on do you think that uh federal regulatory authorities should use their considerable power not just the federal reserve but federal regulatory authorities do you think they should use their considerable power to discourage private banks from lending money to oil and gas companies no ma'am no okay do you think that uh those federal regulatory authorities should use their power to discourage private banks from lending money to gun manufacturers and dealers it's not our job we don't tell banks uh what sectors to lend to we just ask them to risk manage and we make sure they have good processes i agree with you and i thank you for that will you issue a statement to that effect if you're confirmed well i certainly uh have made that statement we'll continue to make this map would you issue a separate statement saying i want to make it clear to for what it's worth to all my colleagues in government i don't think that you should use your power to to discourage private banks from lending money to oil and gas companies and uh into gun manufacturing will you do that well i won't tell other regulators what to do but i i will be happy to talk about what we do at the at the federal reserve what our what our statutory authorities require us to do okay um i'm gonna follow up with you on that okay senator uh i take that as a yes and and i'm looking forward to that statement um director gosh this is this is america's debt i'm not gonna have time to ask you about it because i want to ask director thompson a quick question i mean yes director thompson direct madam director are you familiar with president biden's risk rating 2.0 uh pricing scheme for the national flood insurance program sir i am not familiar with the details of that program well i need you to take a look at it you talk about affordability president biden is about to make housing for at least 505 million americans unaffordable by raising their flood insurance from a thousand dollars a year to five and six thousand dollars a year and you're going to have a problem um real quickly madam governor do you think we've got four big banks they have market share between 30 percent and 50 percent in the greatest economy in all of human history they're not really banks they're countries do you think power economic power is too concentrated in those four banks well i certainly think that from a financial stability point of view when you have very very large institutions that are systemic you need to have very very big capital buffers and liquidity buffers and risk management because it would be very very difficult to resolve those banks in a moment of financial stress okay thank you mr chairman you've been very kind with your time my office will work with you on that statement about oil and gas and gun manufacturers thank you senator okay senator warner from virginia is recognized thank you mr chairman i want to first of all take a moment i know normally in the banking committee we don't introduce our witnesses but i want

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Keywords: Sen. John Kennedy, inflation, Senate

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Length: 6min 19sec (379 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 13 2022