Can POTUS Pollute the Fed? Sure!
People with sub-par talents give sub-par advice and you get sub-par results.
Trump and Jerome Powell, unhappy together.
Photographer: Bloomberg/BloombergPresident Donald Trump may be stuck with Jerome Powell, but he can at least make the Fed chairman’s life miserable.
First there’s the backseat central-banking, which Trump indulged in again today, calling not only for rate cuts but another round of quantitative easing. Then there are Trump’s recent nominations to the Fed of Herman Cain and Stephen Moore. The overwhelming consensus opinion, from liberal and conservative economists, is that both men are hopelessly unqualified loyalists. Several Republican lawmakers feel that way, in fact, Jonathan Bernstein writes, which means they have a duty to shut both nominations down. Jonathan suspects they will, especially if corporate America starts to get antsy about Fed competence and independence.