Which Judy Shelton Would Show Up at the Fed?
Trump’s choice for the Fed Board is now disavowing some of her terrible economic ideas. It's hard to believe her.
Not even she knows.
Photographer: Andrew Harrar/Bloomberg
Judy Shelton, the economic adviser President Trump says he is nominating to the Federal Reserve Board, has long been a predictable voice in monetary policy debates. Predictability is often a good thing in that context: It beats being erratic. Many monetary policy specialists want central banks to minimize the possibility of surprises by announcing relatively simple rules they will follow.
Until very recently, Shelton has been a consistent voice for tight money. In 2010, she decried the idea that the Fed would strive for 2% annual inflation. That was much too high. It meant that “over and above all the taxes you pay … you will also give up another 18 percent of what you’ve earned and saved” over a decade, as inflation eats away at the value of your dollars. “An egregious violation of your property rights,” she called it. The next year, she said that any inflation, even at a rate as low as 2 percent a year, is “highly immoral.”