No. of Recommendations: 14
IF Trump gets to be the bull in the china shop, then our economic system is endangered. Those of you who somehow think the incompetent and corrupt Trump might somehow be good for the economy...might want to rethink that.
The Marketplace podcast has a great discussion of how the election result may effect all things economic.
https://www.marketplace.org/2024/10/28/fed-indepen...In the Fed’s own words, it was “designed to carry out its responsibilities without interference or control from the vested interests inherent in electoral politics, fiscal policymaking, and private banking.” In practice, the central bank’s independence has evolved since it was created by the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. But Trump doesn't like that.
“It is generally recognized and appreciated that if the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decisions were subject to congressional or presidential override, short-term political forces would soon dominate,” Alan Greenspan, a five-term Fed chair, said in 1996. “The clear political preference for lower interest rates would unleash inflationary forces, inflicting severe damage on our economy.”
After Powell, who was nominated by Trump, began his chairmanship in 2018, the Fed continued gradually raising interest rates. In an interview that year with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said about Powell: “He was supposed to be a low-interest-rate guy. It turned out he’s not. … I’m very unhappy with the Fed because Obama had zero interest rates.”
In addition to criticizing the Fed’s policy decisions, Trump has also said on multiple occasions that he believes he should have a role in interest rate decisions. This month, at the Economic Club of Chicago, he said: “I think I’m better than most people would be in that position. I think I have the right to say, ‘I think you should go up or down a little bit.’ I don’t think I should be allowed to order it, but I think I have the right to put in comments as to whether or not interest rates should go up or down.”LOL, says the poster boy for the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Tom Nichols, staff writer at The Atlantic, professor emeritus at the Naval War College:
“I think the American people don’t understand the incredible danger of an American president saying, ‘Well, I should just be able to set interest rates.’ That’s Soviet levels of government intervention,” Nichols said. “That’s incredibly dangerous because then the rest of the world says, ‘Well, I guess the United States isn’t really a functioning economy. It’s just an autocracy where the value of goods and the value of the dollar are basically set by this ignorant authoritarian who wakes up and says, my poll numbers are down, let’s lower interest rates for a while.'” 