feel say my husband believes this and my husband advocates that. but she herself was doing the pitch. and one of her husband's opponents said he hoped that if james were ever elected president she would take up she said, if james and i are ever elected, i will neither keep us nor make butter. the night, one of the most lyrically active and influential first ladies, sarah polk. we will also look at margaret taylor and abigail fillmore. we will take your comments by phone, facebook, and twitter. that is monday at 9:00 on c-span and c-span three. also c-span radio and c- span.org. house of commons is in recess, so prime minister 's questions will not be seen tonight. question time returns on wednesday, april 17, live on c-

span two at 7:00 a.m. eastern. -- vicereserve chairman chairman spoke at the spring conference in washington dc. she said the fed's recent monetary policies and purchasing assets and lowering interest rates have contributed to improvements in the economy. she also commented on a report by the government account ability office. -- criticizing the federal reserve and the office of the comptroller of the currency for creating a pre--- bureaucratic maze. this portion of her remarks is about 30 minutes. a report was issued that criticize the fed for fraud review of foreclosure and documents. the sutures and monitoring consulting firms. let me say that the fed

undertook an independent foreclosure review in order to borrowers who -- had been financially injured by servicer airburst. we worked jointly with the comptroller of the currency. they took the lead in this effort area and they supervise most of the servicers that were involved. prime objective was to get help to borrowers as quickly as we possibly could. 4 turned out that over million borrowers at the servicers were likely affect did -- affected. to themremediation turned out to be an immensely complex, slow, and costly process. initially, we believe that the

review was something that would the areas once we were in midst of it, it became clear that the review was serving to delay getting meaningful help to borrowers. that wea development were not happy with. he wee realized that, needed to go in a different direction and we tried to take what we ought the best available option at that point. we are in the process of adding money quickly to borrowers and that should be happening within the next weeks and months. we think that is the best option. the gao has provided some useful recommendations for how we should continue working with the few servicers that were not part

of the recent settlement and we will take those recommendations. >> if i could translate that e,to journal ease -- journalez if you knew then what you knew now, you would have done it differently. >> absolutely. >> what would you have done differently, do you think? i am not eating to trap you. -- meaning to trap you. promised i would be polite. >> perhaps we would have taken an approach of a similar -- simple or categorization. and sending payments more rapidly, getting involved in detailed reviews. >> or money, less process. >> right. the money that had been agreed on was being eaten up i very costly reviews and spending

money for consultants. ,hese turned out to be commonly a file might be 2000 pages or more. 10 or 20 orld take 50 hours of a single file. that turned out not to be a workable approach. >> ok. let it go. are there any other questions, good luck. one thing, before i go on, your definition of inflation, the fed's, is not the same as the definition we write about in the newspapers. in the newspapers we read about the consumer price index. theuse something called personal consumption expenditure index. >> you've got it. >> thank you. see, i am a good student.

if you were us, would you advise us that whenever we are writing our cpi story to also put in an ac story. i have no idea where to find the damn thing, but someone must. you think that would be helpful. thank you. and complaints from people saying, how can the fed say there no inflation? the big wild things are not in the personal consumption. >> the first thing i want to say is that when the fed thinks inflation and underlying inflationary pressures in the economy, we don't just monitor one single index and blind ourselves to what is going on with the others. we routinely look to become -- at the consumer price index, and a variety of other indices. -- of inflation that try to give a good sense of what the

underlying inflationary pressures are on the economy. we defined our longer run objective to be concrete in terms of the pce, we by no means focus solely on one number and not look -- we look at a whole variety of indices. overecond thing is that most periods, all of these indices tell the same story. and they give roughly the same signals about what inflationary pressures are in the economy. the cbi that you focus on most of the time and the pce index really move together very closely. the cpi is produced by the labor department. it is the best known index. the pce is produced by the commerce department.

i would be happy to point you to where you can find it on -- >> just don't charge me too much. [laughter] >> it is free. >> thank god. my employer can't afford anything. [laughter] >> why did we choose the pce rather than the cpi? in point of fact, it is more of a confidence index with many methodological advances. it covers a broader array of goods and services that the typical consumer buys the on the cpi does. in particular, medical, healthcare expenditures are extremely important to consumers. the cpi coverage is really very limited. i think it is widely agreed that the pci does a much uttered job of covering -- better job of covering medical costs that are important to to google consumers. -- it just so

happens that the pce index over the last year has increased about 1.3% over the last 12 months. the cpi has increased about two percent. at this point, there is a and it reflects the fact that rents have been increasing and the cpi gives the larger weight. this is an aberration. by and large, these indices don't tell different stories about the economy. >> thank you. i have learned something. of mylmost at the end questions. it will be someone else's turn, soon. one of the things that i recognize because i am old and i have saved is that the programs you have of holding down longer interest rates who have displaced me, from the bond market to the stock market, and

they have tropes, if i can use a journalistic word, i read about this a lot, that in order to bail out the people who are -- were in prudence, the fed ended up having to penalize prudent people who were trying to live off their savings. we talked about this. it is a known problem. do you want to discuss the trade-offs in that or any aspect of that? whether it bothers you, which i'm sure it does. >> yes. i appreciate your raising this question. i am very well aware that this is an important and legitimate ,oncern for a lot of people particularly retirees who want a .afe way to save they want to have bank deposits or hold cds and the amount you can get on those is pretty close to zero.

we hear all the time, and it is natural, it is difficult to read it there question about that. why would we do this? , and then we do it reason we think it is in the best interest of the economy overall is because we think it is a way to stimulate a faster economic covering. -- recovery. we think that is going to be good for virtually everyone in the economy, even including those who are suffering from low returns on their cds. when you think about people, they are not just one- dimensional. there is more to their lives man they have cds and bank deposits. people wear a lot of different hats. most people have some investment in the stock market or are exposed in some way to the stock market and the policies that we are pursuing probably have been

good for stock market returns. may, what we are trying to do is to stimulate borrowing. a lot of people even retirees, borrow. to refinance mortgage that helps them or to buy a new house, and they have children and they have grandchildren. think about their children and their families futures. what are they thinking about? i have a kid who is graduating from college and entering the job market. can my child or grandchild find a job? what about me? if i want to supplement my income and work part-time, can i find a job? when people think about all the different concerns they have with the economy and all the different hats they wear and think about what the broad set of consequences is, the low rates of return unsafe deposits, that is a cost.

are we goinghow to get interest rates back up to normal levels? when we have a normal economy. when are we going to have a normal economy? when we are finally able to stimulate a strong enough recovery to get things back up to normal. >> i won't even step on the exit line, that was good. it is now time for the house to ask. just identify yourself, your organization. the microphone is your guarantee you are a member. try not to be as long-winded as i am. >> diva rat well from fidelity investments. thank you for joining us. if i could get your reaction to a panel this morning. one was that the fed's policy of

ultralow rates was not effectively enough stimulating the broader real economy and was being used to advantage by banks and other players in that space. , could you on that tell the audience hear what you thought of that? the second point that was raised it is either incorrect or ineffectual that the fed is mandated to things. the fed might be better off without the full employment mandate. could you talk to that? >> i am happy to address them. to the impact of our policies, do they have an effect on the economy? just look at what is happening in the economy. housing is really beginning to recover in a way i think is very and in thing -- convincing.

house prices are going up more than i would have expect did six or nine months ago. is making people feel a lot better about their financial situation. ande prices are down 30% housing activity is low, but it is begin to rebound. consumer durables. purchases of cars. they have been holding up really well, even though it is the beginning of the year. we had tax increases that you would've expected to negatively impact spending. people have to barter to buy cars. i don't have any doubt that our to thes are contributing , whetherterest rate it is borrowing for a car or borrowing for mortgage, we are looking at historically low interest rates. not only that is

caused by our policy, but our policy is contributing. that is what is going to get the economy moving. , and when weing get more construction activity and more spending on cars and consumer durables, that creates jobs and jobs create income and when people have income they feel better about their economic conditions and they spend and that is the virtuous cycle we need to get this economy going that is the purpose of our purchases, to get interest rates down. i think it has been successful. there are a lot of studies. i think the general conclusion, while there is uncertainty about how large the effects are , they're virtually all come to the conclusion that these

purchases have been helpful. my guess is, if you ask bankers , they come in and complain to us about low interest rates and say it is hurting them, not helping them. .n that, we could debate that then't think that would be general view you find the banking community. on a dual mandate, let me say that, why should we be interested in unemployment and inflation? this is the mandate congress has given us. i am strongly supportive of it. if you ask the typical american what they care about? do they care about inflation? absolutely. do they care about the job market and whether or not they can find a job? absolutely. these are two things the american public cares deeply , thereost of the time is not a trade-off in terms of trying to achieve them.

, we are very focused on employment. we are far from full employment. is there a trade-off gecko no, inflation is running at or slightly below target. there are many central banks around the world that have adopted this, it is called formal inflation target regimes. the prime objective is to achieve a numerical inflation target of in the medium run. if you look at what they do and you look at their mandate, it will see that for almost every one of the central banks, they are also encouraged to use monetary policy to support economic growth and job creation to the extent that there are not serious, long- lasting trade-offs. if you look at the behavior of other central banks, bank of

england over the last several years would be a case in point, they are just as focused on both objectives as we are. practically speaking, there really is not that much difference, if any, between what the fed is doing and what other major central banks are doing. >> thank you. i think we are out of time. kevin is going to shoot us. can we go along? go along, just like football. among fed watchers, you are considered the favorite to follow ben bernanke should he step down when his second term ends in january. if that were to happen, you would be the first woman to head the federal reserve and its one hundred year history. i'm not going to ask about that that, because i know you want comment. [laughter] among the central banks of the world, it is still an old boys club, so that the broader

economics for fashion, only made up of about one third of women. i am wondering if you comment on, do we need more women to lean in to economics and tulane in into the leadership positions at central banks and what did that mean? >> thanks for that question. the highest level in central banking. there are fairy few women. -- very few women. i am pleased that the representation of women is increasing a lot, at other levels, at lower levels of central banking and in the financial markets and institutions more probably. -- broadly. i taught at an mba program for a good share of my career. over the 20 or 30 years that i did that, representation of

women in those programs in general and in finance increased dramatically. seeing women get ahead and making a difference and moving up to the highest post. i think this is something that is going to increase over time. it is time for that to happen. it is a great development. , i amname is greg fields a research fellow at harvard law school. the project i'm working on is dodd frank, and one of the things i am interested in your opinion on is, why is there such a plotting pace of implementation in dodd frank and what are some of the institutional challenges for and organization like yours is that law is implanted? an enormousen challenge to implement all that is in dodd frank.

as soon as the legislation was passed, we sat down and made a list of all that we had to do to carry out what the feds part of this was. 250 separate projects. >> that is all? [laughter] the voelker rolled, small things like that. >>-- the volker rule, things like that. other things that are really major efforts. first of all, there has been a huge agenda of work. .t is complex we don't want to put rules into effect that have not been , oroughly thought through you need to get input from the public, public reaction.

we put out notices of proposed rulemaking for comment. we are working jointly with many other agencies here in the united states to develop these complex rules. it often takes time to try and reach agreement. we want, domestically, a level playing field in terms of, we all agree. for different parts of the financial industry, what the rule should be. even more challenging, and very important, the financial industry is -- you don't want to put into effect roles in the united states that will affect our institutions and find that there are completely different roles in other parts of the world. ideally, we would like a level playing field globally. we don't want a set of regulations where, as soon as we implement them, first we will say, leave the united states

and go off to another country because our roles are tougher or vice versa. we are working very constructively and actively with regulators all around the globe move togetheran jointly. i understand what you say this process has been slow, it has been a couple years now. if you saw how much is going on and how much constructive dialogue is taking place and how we have gotten agreement on so many important things, on enhanced capital requirements for globally active banks where we have agreed globally on reforms to derivatives on liquidity standards.

making ae are really lot of progress. i know you say, why couldn't that have been done in six months? we want to do this right. who want to move forward jointly. this is a great deal of what we spent. >> it will be before the end of 2015. when you lose and everything and it starts again? it is a longpe time after that. hi, from reuters. i was wondering if you could comment on the bank of japan's aggressive monetary stimulus. do you think it will work and how does that change how your thinking about the global economy and u.s. monetary policy? >> i prefer not to comment on of what the bank of japan announced. i certainly say that, here is a country that suffered deflation for well over a decade and had weak economic growth.

when you contemplate the fact , nominal gdpincome in japan today is slightly lower than it was 20 years ago, that is really remarkable and has resulted in all kinds of albums for japan. i really think that taking an aggressive approach to try and end deflation is something i certainly understand. when you look at central banks in advanced countries, the united states, europe has slightly different set of problems. very high unemployment. the united kingdom with high unemployment areas we really all face a common situation where we have had disappointing economic performance and we are all taking steps, different

packages of monetary policy steps to try and address that. i think that is something that completely is appropriate. about a month ago, a group of seven issued a statement. these policies can have some impact on exchange rates. they issued a statement saying, we really think it is entirely appropriate for countries to use the mystic policy tools -- domestic policy tools to promote key domestic policy objectives like trying to achieve full employment and price stability. think whatse, i japan is doing is something that is in their own best interest. something that is successful will be good for stimulating growth in the global economy and it will be good for us, too. >> last question. >> hello. you said that the 2005 oil spike

did not lead to an increase in overall inflation because the public believe the fed would keep inflation in check. what is the evidence of that? do you still think the public has that? >> the evidence that people believed the fed would keep inflation in check, we look at many different measures of inflation expectations. both survey-based evidence and evidence that we try to read out of financial market prices, like the difference between nominal and inflation index bonds. if we look throughout that period, we can see that inflation expectations remained strangely stable -- extremely stable. n contrast to the 1970's, though there were is the quince sequence.

they thought, that it happened once, that will be the last year. it turned out, the next year and the year after, in each case through aces rose sequence of increases in oil prices. each year they were unexpected. forecasters were surprised. is, of course we saw that show up in energy prices. did we see any past two other prices, more broadly? core inflation? during all those years, there was little or no past into core inflation -- >> we are not going to have a debate here. ,> -- are factors that caused