Commentary
If you’re looking for a spirited argument in favor of preserving and perpetuating the independence of a central bank from political pressures and the whims of the mob, you won’t find better than the words of none other than Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
“Long experience, in the United States and in other advanced economies, has demonstrated that monetary policy is most successful when decisions are rendered independent of influence by elected officials,” Powell said in 2015 at Catholic University in Washington in a speech on the foolishness of proposals then percolating in Congress to end the Federal Reserve’s insulation from politics. A member of the Fed’s Board of Governors, it would be three years before Powell would become Fed chairman. …