{"id":165145,"date":"2025-11-28T14:03:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T22:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=165145"},"modified":"2025-11-28T14:04:02","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T22:04:02","slug":"an-independent-fed-is-an-unaccountable-fed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=165145","title":{"rendered":"An Independent Fed Is an Unaccountable Fed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christopher Caldwell writes Sep\/ 19, 2025<\/a>: For half a century, modern central banks have seen their role in policymaking grow steadily. At the close of Jimmy Carter\u2019s presidential term in 1980, his Fed chairman, Paul Volcker, rescued the country from runaway inflation by driving interest rates to nearly 20 percent. Then, in the financial crisis of 2008-9, the Fed became the world banking system\u2019s regulator of first resort. Not only did it flood the economy with money by buying a broad variety of assets; it also set up swap lines to ensure European financial institutions\u2019 access to dollars.<\/p>\n

The present-day Fed, in other words, is an institution of globalism. It symbolizes not just the achievements but also the opacity, the inequality and the de-democratization of our time. Those are precisely the problems that Mr. Trump\u2019s voters elected him to fix.<\/p>\n

The Trumpian domestic program is built around a critique of the so-called administrative state. In theory, government agencies that are insulated from the rough-and-tumble of electoral politics can operate without distractions and uphold high standards. In practice, Mr. Trump\u2019s people argue, such agencies become self-serving nests of like-minded zealots. For the Trumpian base, the intolerant and ineffective performance during the Covid-19 pandemic of such federal agencies as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is a case study.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christopher Caldwell writes Sep\/ 19, 2025: For half a century, modern central banks have seen their role in policymaking grow steadily. At the close of Jimmy Carter\u2019s presidential term in 1980, his Fed chairman, Paul Volcker, rescued the country from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42952],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christopher-caldwell"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t