Nader Tells Janet Yellen To Go ‘Sit Down’ With Her Husband To Learn A Thing Or Two

Open mouth. Insert foot. It’s only Tuesday morning and hot topics are popping all over the news circuit – included the latest flub of politico Ralph Nader. In an open letter on Huffington Post to Janet Yellen, chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Nader waxed:

Chairwoman Yellen, I think you should sit down with your Nobel Prize winning husband, economist George Akerlof, who is known to be consumer-sensitive. Together, figure out what to do for tens of millions of Americans who, with more interest income, could stimulate the economy by spending toward the necessities of life.

For heaven’s sake, you’re a “liberal” from Berkeley! That is supposed to mean something other than to be indentured by the culture and jargon of the Federal Reserve. If you need further nudging on monetary and regulatory policies of the Fed, other than interest rate decisions, why not invite Berkeley Professor Robert Reich, one of your long-time friends and admirers, to lunch on your next trip home?”

We weren’t the only ones scratching our heads a bit that one. UltraViolet Co-Founder Nita Chaudhary had this to say, “Ralph Nader emerged this week from a previous era to demand Janet Yellen go back home to her husband to learn about economics. We think Ralph Nader should keep his 1950s era politics at home, instead. Mansplaining economics to the Chair of the Federal Reserve is absurd, and it is clear from Nader’s piece that it is Yellen’s gender, not her policies, that have him all riled up.” UltraViolet is an online community of over 700,000 women and men who want to take collective action to expose and fight sexism in the public sector, private sector and the media.

To read Nader’s open letter, click here.

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