What Caught My Eye forMay 21 - 27 (#17)

It’s nice to see the more progressive wing gain ground.

The constraints on Mr Warsh make it unlikely that he will radically transform the Fed. But this does not make him harmless. That is because, as Peter Conti-Brown, a Fed historian at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, points out, he and those closest to him “are taking way too seriously the false notion that the Fed is in crisis”.

Mr Warsh himself has, like many of Mr Trump’s cabinet secretaries, developed a habit of getting carried away when criticising the institution he is about to lead. In the past year he has called the broad conduct of monetary policy “broken for quite a long time”. If in office Mr Warsh cannot deliver what Mr Trump wants, blaming his colleagues may be a way to keep the president from turning on him. But having both a president and a sitting Fed chair fulminating against monetary policy would be unprecedented, and would worsen the politicisation of America’s central bank.

One cannot understate how bad politicizing the Fed would be.

A good interview with Kat Abughazaleh after her charges for protesting ICE were dismissed.