Janet Yellen Blames Everybody Else for the Financial Panic

Janet Yellen has been a disappointment as Treasury secretary, and she would have done less harm to her reputation had she left after the midterm election. Her speech last Thursday trying to explain the latest financial panic is a remarkable exercise in blaming everyone other than the real culprits.

Ms. Yellen has an admittedly heavy explanatory lift because this financial trouble wasn’t supposed to happen. The economy was in great shape, she and President Biden kept telling us. Inflation was transitory, and when she suddenly had to admit it wasn’t, she said it would fall soon enough.