When Janet Yellen testified to Congress last week, she was as usual careful with her words. Alan Greenspan once called it “mumbling with incoherence” but there is very little left to rambling in Yellen’s predicament. Where Greenspan was once the “maestro” and Bernanke the “hero” Yellen is stuck holding the bag, and I think she knows it. In truth, there isn’t the faintest difference between any of them, which is exactly the problem and her source of frustration. The Fed is in grave danger of being unquestionably revealed for the backward, incompetent institution it always was.

As to the recent stumble, it makes for the most uncomfortable juxtaposition between what the Fed did in December and what the economy and markets have continued to do since mid-year last year. To continue on in that contradiction leaves her no choice but to blame again “overseas.”

“Financial conditions in the United States have recently become less supportive of growth,” she told the House Financial Services Committee. “These developments, if they prove persistent, could weigh on the outlook for economic activity.”

She meant that convulsions in the stock markets could harm the economy…

 Ms. Yellen argued on Wednesday that the rest of the world was to blame. She said the crucial question confronting the Fed was whether the domestic economy is strong enough to keep growing modestly even as the global economy struggles.

As always, it has to be “overseas” because the BLS says so.

Ms. Yellen highlighted the “solid improvement” of the United States labor market. The unemployment rate fell to 4.9 percent in January from 5.7 percent a year ago, while the economy added an average of 222,000 jobs a month. Wages also rose more quickly.

Whether she actually believes the BLS figures or not is another question altogether. If this is still part of the “best jobs market in decades”, where is all the spending? Not only was the Christmas shopping season atrocious, the first estimates for 2016 were even more so. While seasonal adjustments “saved” the retail sales report for January, actual store receipts bury them by agreeing with the unadjusted version.