Three weeks ago, when the Fed and Janet Yellen shocked markets with their extremely dovish statement in which they admitted the US Federal Reserve no longer is US data dependent, and instead is far more focused on global developments and especially China’s dollar-pegged currency (which makes it impossible for the Fed to be hawkish without causing further FX instability and leading to more Chinese capital flight), CNBC’s Steve Liesman asked Yellen point blank a question which would seem otherwise completely taboo: does the Fed have a credibility problem.

This was her response:

Well, let me start — let me start with the question of the Fed’s credibility. And you used the word “promises” in connection with that. And as I tried to emphasize in my opening statement, the paths that the participants project for the federal funds rate and how it will evolve are not a pre-set plan or commitment or promise of the committee. Indeed, they are not even — the median should not be interpreted as a committee-endorsed forecast.And there’s a lot of uncertainty around each participant’s projection. And they will evolve. Those assessments of appropriate policy are completely contingent on each participant’s forecasts of the economy and how economic events will unfold. And they are, of course, uncertain. And you should fully expect that forecasts for the appropriate path of policy on the part of all participants will evolve over time as shocks, positive or negative, hit the economy that alter those forecasts. So, you have seen a shift this time in most participants’ assessments of the appropriate path for policy. And as I tried to indicate, I think that largely reflects a somewhat slower projected path for global growth — for growth in the global economy outside the United States, and for some tightening in credit conditions in the form of an increase in spreads. And those changes in financial conditions and in the path of the global economy have induced changes in the assessment of individual participants in what path is appropriate to achieve our objectives. So that’s what you see — that’s what you see now.