Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) — Janet Yellen saw the U.S. economy "at, if not beyond, the brink of recession" in January 2008, according to transcripts of Federal Reserve policy meetings released Friday.
Yellen, president of the San Francisco Fed at the time and now Federal Reserve chairwoman, disagreed with the Fed staff, which reported at the January meeting that the economy wasn't in a recession, though the likelihood of a downturn was increasing.
Yellen said deteriorating credit conditions and a slowdown in the labor market were likely to weigh on economic growth.
"Delinquencies and charge-offs on most forms of consumer debt have already risen, and slower job growth seems likely to exacerbate this trend, prompting financial institutions to further tighten credit standards and terms," she said at the Jan. 29-30, 2008, meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. "In my forecast, such developments reverberate back negatively onto economic activity."
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
