I think there are important questions on the table about the structure of regulatory authority and responsibility at the national (level).

But no matter how that comes out, I think the structure of the Federal Reserve system has served this country very well and in my view it ought to be preserved.

From comments to press, as reported by Reuters

I especially appreciate Charlie’s mentioning my modest book collection. Part of that collection consists of documents and writings of British prime ministers. One of my favorites is Gladstone. He used to say that “only love has made more fools of men than contemplating the nature of money.” Yet, that is precisely what Charlie Evans and I and Ben Bernanke and our colleagues at the Federal Reserve do: We spend practically every waking hour contemplating the nature of money and the proper shape and conduct of our monetary system. So if you detect an air of distraction in Charlie Evans now and then, be kind. He has not gone mad or foolish on us; he is just hard at work noodling through our predicament and conjuring up Chicago’s recommendations on what we at the Federal Open Market Committee should do.

At the Federal Reserve and at other bank regulatory agencies, our job is to reinforce the incentives and actions that are building a more resilient financial system. We need to make sure that regulatory minimum capital requirements and liquidity management plans protect reasonably well against shocks becoming systemic. Our supervisory guidance needs to be in place to prevent backsliding when, over the coming years, the memories and lessons of the current market turmoil fade, as they certainly will.

To these ends, we are reexamining a host of things ranging from Basel II to liquidity to transparency. Working with our domestic and international colleagues, we are looking to raise the Basel II capital requirements on specific exposures that have been troublesome, such as super senior CDOs of asset-backed securities and off-balance-sheet commitments. We are looking to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision to update its guidance on liquidity management in light of the recent experience. And we and our supervisory colleagues are looking to require better disclosures of off-balance-sheet commitments and of valuations of complex structured products.

So we must worry about excessive leverage and susceptibility to runs not only at banks but also at securities firms. To be sure, investment banks are still different in many ways from commercial banks. Among other things, their assets are mostly marketable and their borrowing mostly secured. Ordinarily, this should protect them from liquidity concerns. But we learned that short-term securities markets can suddenly seize up because of a loss of investor confidence, such as in the unusual circumstances building over the past six months or so. And investment banks had no safety net to discourage runs or to fall back on if runs occurred. Securities firms have been traditionally managed to a standard of surviving for one year without access to unsecured funding. The recent market turmoil has taught us that this is not adequate, because short-term secured funding, which these firms heavily rely upon, also can become impaired.

With many securities markets not functioning well, with the funding of investment banks threatened, and with commercial banks unable and unwilling to fill the gap, the Federal Reserve exercised emergency powers to extend the liquidity safety net of the discount window to the primary dealers.³ Our goal was to forestall substantial damage to the financial markets and the economy. Given the changes to financial markets and banking that we've been discussing this morning, a pressing public policy issue is what kind of liquidity backstop the central bank ought to supply to these institutions. And, assuming that some backstop is considered necessary because under some circumstances a run on an investment bank can threaten financial and economic stability, an associated issue is what sorts of regulations are required to make the financial system more resilient and to avoid excessive reliance on any such facility and the erosion of private-sector discipline.

...

Whatever type of backstop is put in place, in my view greater regulatory attention will need to be devoted to the liquidity risk-management policies and practices of major investment banks. In particular, these firms will need to have robust contingency plans for situations in which their access to short-term secured funding also becomes impaired. Commercial banks should meet the same requirement. Implementation of such plans is likely to entail substitution of longer-term secured or unsecured financing for overnight secured financing. Because those longer-term funding sources will tend to be more costly, both investment banks and commercial banks are likely to conclude that it is more profitable to operate with less leverage than heretofore. No doubt their internalization of the costs of potential liquidity shocks will be costly to their shareholders, and a portion of the costs likely will be passed on to other borrowers and lenders. But a financial system with less leverage at its core will be a more stable and resilient system, and recent experience has driven home the very real costs of financial instability.

Part of our work list for regulations is to reexamine the extent to which we ourselves rely on rating agencies (to measure) the risks that you guys are taking.

There was far too much reliance on credit rating agencies all around.

From Q&A as reported by Market News International 

The Fed has to be careful not to aggravate boom-bust cycles in monetary policy and the economy. We have to be somewhat cautious in our approach.

From press Q&A as reported by Market News International

 Indeed, even as house prices were rising, economists in the Fed and elsewhere were analyzing how a downturn in the housing sector might affect the economy and evaluating potential policy responses. At the time, however, it was simply not anticipated that house price declines would contribute to such burgeoning delinquencies and defaults among subprime borrowers, and that those problems would set off a chain of events that would rattle the financial system, resulting in the credit crunch that is now severely restraining economic activity and employment.

Asked if she regretted not having a vote as the Fed faces its most challenging period in decades, Yellen said that all the Fed policy-makers are "noodling it out together ... it doesn't matter that much if you cast a vote or not."

From Q&A as reported by Reuters

[L]et me explore three of the most trenchant and overlapping plot lines, none of which seem to avail themselves readily to a speedy resolution. First, a striking loss of confidence is affecting financial market functioning. Second, the business models of many large financial institutions are in the process of significant re-examination and repair. Third, the Federal Reserve is exercising its powers to mitigate the effects of financial turmoil on the real economy. This third plot line, however necessary, will not, in and of itself, ensure a more durable return of trust to our financial architecture. In my view, public liquidity is an imperfect substitute for private liquidity. That is, only when the other plot lines advance apace--meaning that significant, private financial actors return to their proper role at center stage--will credit market functioning and support for economic growth be fully restored. And for that to happen, as I am confident it will, we will find that the financial markets and financial firms are outfitted quite differently.

The central bank's responsibility is not to individual firms but to financial markets, and only then, to the extent that financial market stresses affect the real economy. Given the fragility evidenced in financial markets, and the toll it is taking on real activity, the Federal Reserve agreed to take center stage. This is a role for which we did not volunteer, but one in which we are prepared to serve. The role has been thrust upon us by a loss of confidence in our existing financial architecture. Hence, we should remain at center stage as long as is necessary, but no longer.

The Fed has made some tough judgment calls lately, and, having been party to making those calls, I can assure you they certainly were not made lightly. In principle, we know that the market should decide the winners and losers, who survives and who fails. I am a big fan of Winston Churchill. “It is always more easy to discover and proclaim general principles than to apply them,” Churchill said. I now know full well what he meant.

The Federal Reserve has judged it necessary to take actions that extend to the very edge of its lawful and implied powers, transcending in the process certain long-embedded central banking principles and practices.

As reported by Bloomberg News

What appears to be in substance a direct transfer of mortgage and mortgage-backed securities of questionable pedigree from an investment bank to the Federal Reserve seems to test the time-honored central bank mantra in time of crisis: lend freely at high rates against good collateral; test it to the point of no return.

...

The extension of lending directly to non-banking financial institutions -- while under the authority of nominally `temporary' emergency powers -- will surely be interpreted as an implied promise of similar action in times of future turmoil.

As reported by Bloomberg News

If a central bank is to assume the responsibility of being a lender of last resort, it should clearly articulate its objectives in doing so. It should make credible that commitment and act in a way that is consistent with that commitment. It should clearly communicate its lending policies to the public. What’s more, the independence of the central bank’s decision making from short-term political interference is essential to sound policymaking in this arena as well.

[It is a] very difficult policy to intervene in the workings of markets at a particular chosen time.

It's difficult to identify, it's difficult to choose timing, difficult to be sure that market forces themselves will not have what
turns out at the end to be a positive effect.

From audience Q&A, as reported by Market News International, saying he's not "comfortable" with the Fed pre-emptively targeting asset bubbles.