These are trying times for the U.S. economy. The unemployment rate is almost 10 percent, our financial system remains under stress, community bank failures have become weekly news and the central bank is printing money to such an extent that zero interest rates bring little return to those who choose to save.
Not in decades has the Federal Reserve seen such challenges in how it conducts monetary policy. With this in mind, this morning I will give you my sense of the issues we face and the hard choices that must be made. I’ll begin by focusing on financial reform legislation, including my observations about where we are with too-big-to-fail.