https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-steps-up-attacks-on-fed-chairman-jerome-powell-1540338090
Automod told me to comment on this as it relates to the market so here:
Trump is commenting on monetary policy which has traditionally been something POTUS doesn't do, but nothing about 2018 is tradition so there's that. The key questions this raises are A) if Trump decides Tuesday shouldn't be a day anymore, can he fire Fed chair, and B) will any of Trump's comments effect Powell or the Fed as a whole? I have no idea about either and I don't even want to guess at A, but B is interesting because if the Fed is effected in any way, they can either A) double down on rate hikes as a show of independence from the White House, or B) actually slow down the hikes so as to not be blamed by Republicans when the economy inevitably goes down the drain.
My guess is that Powell won't comment on this and whether or not it will change how he decides to proceed isn't something we'll know because we don't know what he would have done in the absence of these comments. I really don't think they're going to slow down substantially on the hikes with inflation indicators finally reflecting what a lot of consumer staples conference calls have been saying for a while.
Submitted October 23, 2018 at 07:49PM by mdcd4u2c https://ift.tt/2O5Qp84
