Normally when one sees a headline about the chair of the Federal Reserve one would expect to learn that she is considering some change in monetary policy that is perceived as potentially unfavorable for financial markets. This time Dr. Yellen has done something far more serious than that. She has committed an act of heresy against the neoliberal creed by suggesting that (gasp) economic inequality might be creating economic problems. Who does she think she is, an economist or something? Janet Yellen Mentions Inequality; Conservatives Scandalized Earlier this month, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen delivered a careful, fact-laden speech about rising economic inequality. This proved so sufficiently alarming to conservatives that even the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Strain, a moderate, wrote that Yellen is now “in danger of becoming a partisan hack.” Strain has kicked off a debate, hosted in the New York Times today, over Yellen’s apparently shocking breach of decorum. The most striking thing about Yellen’s remarks is how cautiously she waded into the subject of inequality. Rather than actually state that rising inequality is a problem in American life, she merely conceded that it is “appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation's history.” Strain concedes that Yellen withheld a personal opinion about whether the rising gap between rich and poor is good or bad—“even by focusing on income inequality,” he argues, “she has waded into politically choppy waters.”   There are a bunch of hair on fire pieces about this outrage on various right wing financial sites. The indignation is generally dripping with patronizing expressions of CONCERN. I'm not going to bother to put any of them here.  When the good old boys of the financial establishment were all lining up to get Bernanke replaced by that well known sexist neoliberal Larry Summers, I was pretty much of the almost anybody but him persuasion. A woman in the job seemed like a good thing as well. However, I was dubious that a financial insider like Yellen was going to do anything to rock the neoliberal boat. I am now reevaluating that view. I am entertaining a pleasant fantasy of Janet Yellen at the Fed and Elizabeth Warren at the White House. That could bring about the kind of change that you can actually put in your pocket.