![]() ![]() Waller is not a star, but he is well-credentialled enough. The confirmation hearings may prove pivotal. It’s hard to predict what the US Senate will do. But her views on economic matters line up with Trump’s. She lacks the academic credentials of anyone who has ever served as a governor of the Fed. She is also an advocate of pegging the value of the US dollar to gold or some composite basket of commodities. Shelton also favours rate cuts and seems to support almost every position Trump holds – from tax cuts to deregulation to the trade war with China. The implication is that he wants the Fed to cut rates – a position consistently argued by Trump. If you take that off the table, suddenly you’re like: Unemployment can stay low, and it doesn’t cause inflation, then what are you worried about? In an interview last week he said he didn’t think low unemployment drove up inflation: His view on the latter is perhaps why Trump nominated him. He has written academic papers about the independence of central banks, and on the determinants of low inflation. He has a Phd from Washington State University, and has been a professor at the University of Notre Dame. ![]() Waller has been director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis (one of the 12 regional US reserve banks). With Waller and Shelton, one is qualified (if not exceptional), the other is dubious. A confirmation hearing was never scheduled before the Republican-led Senate, and she withdrew. The banking lobby apparently didn’t like this too much. But she had led the Fed’s post-GFC efforts to tighten regulation of financial institutions. She was widely respected and her nomination was smiled upon by Fed chairman Jay Powell. This did not endear him to the libertarian Republican senator Rand Paul. In 2000, he suggested the government put magnetic strips on money so it could tax cash to avoid deflation. He had been critical of the stimulus spending following the Global Financial Crisis. Goodfriend failed to gain enough support in the Senate because he had put both Democrats and Republicans offside. Both were criticised as being egregiously unqualified, but both had consistently said very nice things about Trump.īefore Cain and Moore, Trump nominated Marvin Goodfriend, a Carnegie Mellon professor, and Nellie Liang, a long-time Fed official. Two of his failed nominees were former presidential rival Herman Cain and Club for Growth founder Stephen Moore. Trump tends to favour people who agree with him. They'll have to changeĬurrent RBA board member Ian Harper has a PhD in economics, and so did former member Warwick McKibbin, but there has never been more than one such member (setting aside the RBA governor and deputy governor) at a time. Vital Signs: the RBA's marching orders are no longer realistic. The Fed Board’s weighting towards PhD economists and those with impeccable credentials in financial markets contrasts somewhat with the Reserve Bank of Australia, which is largely comprised on people from the business community. ![]() ![]() Some have been long-term employees of the Federal Reserve system (Donald Kohn, for example), while others have had extensive experience in financial markets (Jerome Powell, Sarah Bloom Raskin and Betsy Ashburn Duke). Examples include Janet Yellen, Jeremy Stein, Lael Brainard, Richard Clarida, Stanley Fischer, Ben Bernanke, Randall Kronser, Frederic Mishkin and Alice Rivlin. In the pre-Trump era, those nominated to be governors tended to be distinguished individuals with an extensive background in a relevant field.Ī significant number of recent governors have been academic economists. Given this, and the fact the governors serve terms of up to 14 years, they are influential and important figures. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |