News outlets are reporting the nomination of Kevin Warsh to replace current Fed Chair chair Jerome Powell, whose second term expires in May. President Trump had nominated him in 2018, but has come to hate him as he’s an independent force in monetary policy. There was some concern that Trump would nominate a complete loon, and the CNN headline mentions Trump saying Warsh is … right out of Central Casting … Warsh actually had a term as a Fed Governor, 2006 – 2011, and while he may have more confidence in forecasting the future than I’m comfortable with, as CBS News reports…
In recent years, Warsh has grown increasingly critical of the Fed, arguing that the institution has become excessively focused on backward-looking economic data rather than anticipating changes, Deutsche Bank analysts said in a December 15 report.
… at least he doesn’t seem to be an out and out loon, as so many of Trump’s associates and nominees tend to be.
Why not? I’m guessing Trump, or whoever is manipulating him, looked at the Senate, which is showing signs of breaking free from Trump’s grip, and realized nominating a loon would run the risk of rejection, a political loss adding to the weight of the view that Trump is not invincible, not dominant. The background of the tragic debacle in Minneapolis, the nomination of Minneapolis for the Nobel Peace Prize, a string of failures in various courts, the probability of even more failures in the courts, including SCOTUS, if observers read the tea leaves rightly, the mass exodus of competent lawyers from the DoJ, the evident insufficiency of his approach of hiring folks out of central casting, rather than on competency and merit, the economy stumbling as tariffs fail, an Administration very poorly stewarded, and there’s so much more and so I’ll spare the reader.
Selecting a palatable candidate should avoid a politically damaging failure at a critical moment.
Just as importantly, it’ll serve to hold the attention of a less politically savvy audience as more of the Epstein Files are being released today. As to the efficacy of distraction using this technique, in the day of the Web I have to wonder if it’s not effective at all; but old political hacks will cling to their ways.
So this appears, on first glance, to be safe for the nation.
