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Notes -
In news that is not about Minnesota, president Trump is pushing for Kevin Warsh as Jerome Powell's replacement at the he'd of the Federal Reserve..
Jerome Powell was picked by Trump during his first term, replacing Janet Yellen. His tenure has been marked with volatile markets (both up and down), high inflation, the end of ZIRP, and more recently, political turmoil.
That last bit is unusual. The federal reserve is allegedly an independent body, and the chairman is nominally apolitical. In the last few years, this set of beliefs has begun to fray, particularly on the right. Powell and Trump have always had disagreements about interest rates, but that came to a head during the election of 2024.
Rates have remained high since then, although cuts have occurred.
Since then, the administration has called for Powell's dismissal, and a recent investigation has caused enough strife that Powell has announced that he will be stepping down from the position.
Trump's replacement, Warsh, has previously served as a Fed governor during the 2008 financial crisis. Historically, he has been very concerned about inflation, as well as the effects of printing more money. This seems to conflict with Trump's stated goals of lowering the interest rate.
What is going on here? Has Warsh had a change of heart?
If as an organization you don’t want to seem political - then don’t be political. The fed has made two mistakes here.
Like everything else especially on the Dem appointment side the Fed was woke 2020-2024. All th bosses had to find their next gig or wanted Powell’s job. Things like we need to keep rates low because of black unemployment etc which is something most people think monetary policy is not a viable tool to target.
On policy decision judgement calls my vibe is the fed has given Dems easier policy than GOP. 2018 we had a Dec stock market crash during a hiking cycle. We didn’t have inflation and a plausible argument could be made with had 30-40 bps of output gap to run it hotter. And during the Biden administration we had the reverse polio and let inflation get stupid. The supply shock were mostly wrong as we had huge surges in nominal spending. Supply shock inflation would have shown inflation but nominal spending in line with long term growth rates (around 4%). It is a judgement call but it certainly vibes to me that Dems had a different strike zone.
I don’t follow fed policy that closely but the cut right before the last presidential election just seemed ridiculous, if there is a strong (non political) reason for this I would be interested in hearing what it is.
It’s also very hard to look at someone like Lisa Cooks resume (her academic research as highlighted on Wikipedia mostly sounds like social justice bullshit), and conclude that she was put there for any reason other than political loyalty
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