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Indian Express
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Remembering Norman Tebbit, working-class Tory, originator of the ‘cricket test'
In 1981, Norman Tebbit told a Conservative Party conference that his unemployed father didn't riot during the Great Depression. 'He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it.' This soon passed into the popular imagination as the younger Tebbit's — Britain's newly minted employment secretary — panacea for unemployment, despite his clarifications. He would be greeted with shouts of 'onyerbike' for years to come. That's not the only Tebbitism to be mythologised; his 'cricket test' is perhaps the most famous internationally — a suggestion that the loyalties of Britain's Asian population could be judged by which side they cheered for in cricket matches. To top it all is his puppet from the satirical TV show Spitting Image: Margaret Thatcher's leather-clad, knuckle-duster-wielding enforcer (the real Tebbit later expressed his fondness for the puppet). To the younger generations, he was always more caricature than man, a ghost of the Thatcher years. As a young man, Tebbit, who died on Monday aged 94, developed the individualistic, pro-enterprise philosophy that would make him a natural fit for Thatcher's new conservatism — a marked departure from the post-War, Keynesian consensus until then: Nationalised industries, strong trade unions and welfare state. Thatcher's 1979 victory would see much of this demolished, leaving a legacy that remains deeply divisive. Tebbit played his part, weakening the powers of unions, driving privatisation and, as party chairman, leading a successful re-election campaign in 1987. He retired from frontline politics afterwards to care for his wife, who had been left disabled by an IRA bombing. A working-class Tory who died a baron, Tebbit's life was not without its paradoxes: He developed his animosity for certain union practices early on, but later served as a union official during his career as a pilot and even went on strike. Always a plain speaker and a caustic wit, he was once asked if God existed. 'He ought to,' he said.
Gulf Insider
07-07-2025
- Business
- Gulf Insider
Germany's Pension Ponzi Scheme Is Collapsing: What Comes Next
If you've ever wanted to witness the slow-motion collapse of a Ponzi scheme, you might want to keep an eye on Germany's public pension system. Rhetorically and politically sugar-coated as a 'pay-as-you-go' system — where today's workers finance the retirement of yesterday's — this bureaucratic redistribution leviathan is utterly dependent on an ever-growing pool of contributors. Problem is: Germany is aging, shrinking, and losing its industrial base. Just in time for this demographic crunch — declining birth rates, increasing life expectancy, and longer pension payout durations — policymakers have decided to torch what's left of the country's industrial foundation in a green frenzy. Year after year, around €70 billion in value creation is being sent up the chimney, while more than half a million jobs have disappeared in recent years. That's half a million fewer contributors to the pension Ponzi. Tax Payer´s Money To Maintain The Illusion To keep the locomotive rolling — even as it barrels in the wrong direction — the federal government now plugs the pension system's gaping cash hole with roughly €123 billion annually from the general budget. In other words: workers pay a second time, in the form of taxes, to support the same unsustainable system they already fund through record-high payroll deductions. With a government spending ratio now exceeding 50% of GDP, Germany has erected a full-scale hyperstate. Attached to its bloated bureaucracy are ever-growing administrative tentacles: layers of social insurance agencies and subsidized institutions now serving as the domestic enforcement arm of Brussels' self-destructive Green Deal. The coming deep economic depression, which has been foreshadowed by three years of quasi-permanent recession, will test just how resilient — and solvent — the savings and wealth accumulation of past generations truly are. It may be their prudence that softens the blow of the present generation's green delirium. Trapped in the Logic of a Ponzi Scheme and Keynesian Voodoo Economics Entirely captive to the logic of Ponzi finance and Keynesian voodoo economics, Germany's new federal government now plans its grand escape from all woes. With a debt hammer of one trillion euros over the coming years, it aims to wipe away every problem while putting the economy back on track. Broadly speaking, the money is supposed to raise the defense budget to 5% of GDP, as demanded by the latest NATO summit, pour into the country's crumbling infrastructure, and plug countless holes in the overstrained welfare apparatus. Click here to read more…
Mint
22-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
Dani Rodrik: Abundance for consumers could still mean misery for workers
Next Story Dani Rodrik An economic vision of abundantly supplied markets isn't enough. People don't just derive an income from their vocations, but self-esteem and satisfaction too. We need policies that generate good jobs, even if we sacrifice some efficiency for it. The rise of far-right populists in the US and Europe has been linked to the job losses associated with trade shocks, automation and fiscal austerity. Gift this article The surest way for policy advocates to lose a progressive audience is to talk about the economy's supply side, the importance of incentives and the dangers of overregulation—ideas typically linked to conservative agendas. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's new book Abundance aims to change all that. The surest way for policy advocates to lose a progressive audience is to talk about the economy's supply side, the importance of incentives and the dangers of overregulation—ideas typically linked to conservative agendas. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's new book Abundance aims to change all that. As the authors point out, the left has traditionally focused on demand-side remedies. A key tenet of the New Deal in the US and social democracy in Europe is Keynesian management of aggregate demand to ensure full employment. Klein and Thompson rightly underscore that it is improvements in supply that are the source of broad-based posterity in the US and other advanced economies. As productivity rises, low- and middle-income families reap the benefits of cheaper and more varied and plentiful goods and services. However, increasingly, the US economy's ability to build things has been hobbled, the authors argue, by environmental, safety, labour and other regulations, and by complex and time-consuming local permitting rules. These rules and regulations may be well-meaning, but they can be also counterproductive. When governments and communities place obstacles in the way of investment and innovation, they undercut prosperity. Public transport lags behind, productivity in housing construction plummets and the deployment of renewables falters. The authors' vision of progress features energy from renewable sources and cheap, safe nuclear power; fresh water from desalination; fruits and vegetables from hyper-productive vertically stacked farms; meat produced in labs without slaughtering live animals; miracle drugs delivered by autonomous drones; and space-based factories meeting other needs without requiring any human workers. Since AI would greatly shorten the workweek, we'd all enjoy more vacation time without sacrificing our living standards. Keynesian social democracy no longer provides an adequate answer to the malaise experienced by workers. But Klein and Thompson's depiction of utopia reflects a vision that ultimately remains consumerist. Their focus is squarely on the abundance of goods and services that the economy generates—on how much we build, rather than on the builders. In this, they share a common blind spot with economists who, ever since Adam Smith, have emphasized that the ultimate end of production is consumption. But what gives meaning to our lives is not just the fruits of our labour, but also the work itself. When people are asked about well-being and life satisfaction, the work they do ranks at the top, along with contributions to their community and family bonds. For economists, a job provides income, but is otherwise a negative —a source of 'disutility.' For real people, a job is a source of pride, dignity and social recognition. Employment loss typically produces a reduction in individual well-being that is a multiple of the loss of income. The social effects magnify those costs. The rise of far-right populists in the US and Europe has been linked to the job losses associated with trade shocks, automation and fiscal austerity. Also Read: Populist policies can be myopic and also very hard to challenge Good jobs pay well, but also provide security, autonomy and a path to self-improvement. None of this is possible without high levels of productivity. A progressive focused on abundance of good jobs, rather than abundance of goods and services, would find plenty to agree with in this book. But there would also be many quibbles. Consider housing, one of Klein and Thompson's key examples. US productivity in housing construction has stagnated in recent years, in part because of safety regulations and union rules. But as one of the authors' interlocutors readily admits, fatalities and non-fatal injuries in construction have fallen dramatically in the US since the 1970s, thanks to many of these restrictive rules. That must surely count as an improvement in overall worker well- being, casting the productivity statistics in a somewhat different light. The authors' line of argument echoes economists' case for automation and free trade. These may have been efficient by conventional criteria, and they certainly helped produce an abundance of goods. But they also hurt many of our workers, leaving societies scarred and paving the way for right-wing populism. A good-jobs focus would make us more tolerant of regulations that sacrifice some efficiency for the sake of better labour-market outcomes, especially for non-college-educated workers. Ultimately, the real challenge for progressives is to devise an agenda that benefits workers as workers as much as in their role as consumers. This requires a distinctive approach to innovation, investment and regulation. Unions, worker representatives and collective bargaining must be viewed as essential components of abundance, rather than obstacles to it. Place-based strategies and local economic development coalitions are critical. Government must put its thumb on the scale to ensure innovation takes a worker-friendly direction. Advanced economies' most glaring failure has been their inability to deliver enough good jobs. Remedying this issue requires focusing on those who produce abundance, alongside abundance itself. ©2025/Project Syndicate The author is a professor of international political economy at Harvard Kennedy School, and the author of 'Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy'. Topics You May Be Interested In Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
The Wire
10-06-2025
- Business
- The Wire
A Book Exploring Development Economics Through the Lives of South Asia's Most Consequential Economists
Former Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh (centre) and Amartya Sen (second from left), at an event in New Delhi in December 2008. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Real journalism holds power accountable Since 2015, The Wire has done just that. But we can continue only with your support. Contribute Now Economic historians often tread paths heavily mined with complex, sometimes unsettled ideas and ideological conflicts. When they examine the subject's longue duré e since the Second World War – the slow evolution of development economics, its theories, structures, and processes – the journey can be quite treacherous. Tracing the development of economics and growth across post-colonial nation-states, the debates, the underlying ideas and ideologies, and the personalities of the individuals who shaped them is no easy task. It can leave the historian trapped in preference bias. David C. Engerman, the Leitner International Interdisciplinary Professor of History at Yale University, navigates many of these hazards deftly in his new book, Apostles of Development: Six Economists and the World They Made (India Viking, May 2025). The book offers a compelling description of the field of development economics and its progress over the last 75 years in South Asia. Engerman explores the ideas, debates, and conflicts that shaped development economics through the lives of six of South Asia's most consequential economists: Amartya Sen, Manmohan Singh, Mahbub ul Haq, Jagdish Bhagwati, Rehman Sobhan, and Lal Jayawardena. Apostles of Development: Six Economists and the World They Made, written by David C. Engerman, India Viking, May 2025. Photo: His selection is apt. All were born in pre-independence South Asia. Their early intellectual development was rooted in the transatlantic academic ethos of the 1950s and 1960s – Cambridge, Oxford, or MIT. Yet their willingness to shift from theoretical debates – classical, neo-classical, or Keynesian – to the grounded realities of post-colonial South Asia makes them vital figures in the history of economic thought. While exploring his choice of protagonists, Engerman writes in his introduction, 'Taken individually, each of these six made their mark on development thought over many decades – in their home countries, in South Asia writ large, across the Global South, and indeed around the world… All except Sen served in their governments at some point, each in his own way shaping the economic directions of their respective countries… Taken together, the six apostles show how much the Global South shaped the global enterprise of development.' This examination of the lives, thoughts, and impact of Sen, Singh, Haq, Bhagwati, Sobhan, and Jayawardena is not merely biographical; it offers sharp insights into their careers as highly consequential economists. The approach also serves as a useful narrative device, constructing a broad account of key events and debates in economics over the past 70 years, mainly centred on India and South Asia. A book focusing primarily on South Asia In the book's introduction, Engerman suggests that his work is about the development of economic thought in the Global South. But this claim is only partially borne out since the book focuses primarily on South Asia. It offers little discussion about the impact that experiences from other regions might have had on Engerman's six protagonists, and pays virtually no attention to the influence they may have had on development in Latin America or Africa. Engerman does clarify that the book is centred on post-colonialism, and is therefore more about South Asia than the Global South. Still, the evolution of development economics has been shaped as much by Latin America and Africa as by the post-colonial experiences of South Asia. More could have been done to explore the wider intellectual currents that shaped the six protagonists, particularly the influence of thinkers from other regions. During his tenure at UNCTAD from 1966 to 1969, Manmohan Singh worked closely with the Argentinian economist Raúl Prebisch, whose contributions to structuralist economics – including the Prebisch–Singer hypothesis and dependency theory – were foundational. A much fuller exploration of Prebisch's influence on Singh's later thinking and career would have made for compelling reading. Likewise, a more detailed account of the protagonists' engagement with thinkers such as Gunnar Myrdal, W. Arthur Lewis, Walt Rostow, and Paul Rosenstein-Rodan – and the extent to which these figures shaped their ideas – would have added depth to the book. Myrdal's work with Nicholas Kaldor on circular cumulative causation resonated with Sen's thinking. Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, too, offered instructive counterpoints, rooted in their Austrian-British and American traditions, respectively. Nevertheless, the book draws on a rich vein of historical research, making it essential reading for those interested in South Asia's economic and development history. The six protagonists have helped shape not only the contours of development theory, but also the economic trajectories of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Sen's work, which earned him the Nobel Prize, has in many ways defined a distinctive strand of development thought in economics. Bhagwati's contributions to trade theory – and his demonstration of how tariffs and government interventions can distort welfare outcomes – remain relevant in today's conflicted, Trumpian times. Singh and Jayawardena have brought about consequential change as practitioners of the art and craft of economics, while Haq and Sobhan have done much to try and influence the economic trajectories of Pakistan and Bangladesh, respectively. The author demonstrates a solid understanding of the foundations of international economic inequality. However, Engerman excels more as a historian than as an analyst adept at exploring the philosophical influences on economists. In retracing the paths of these six figures through the hallowed halls of Cambridge in the 1950s, Engerman introduces brief but illuminating sketches of British economists such as Joan Robinson, Nicholas Kaldor, Richard Kahn, and P. T. Bauer. His portrayal of Robinson – her rejection of orthodox assumptions and her disdain for the mathematical modelling favoured by Americans – is particularly absorbing. His concise description of Bauer's early work in British Malaya, which laid the foundations for his dissenting critiques and the first development economics monograph, is equally compelling. These thinkers contributed significantly to the foundation of the field, as well as to the intellectual formation of Engerman's six protagonists. Engaging depiction of Indian economic thought in the 1960s Engerman's depiction of Indian economic thought in the 1960s, viewed through the eyes of Bhagwati, Sen, and Singh, is especially engaging and significant. His account of the period offers valuable examples of the persistent tussle between politics and economics in the Global South. One episode in India stands out as particularly illustrative of the era's political economy. It captures both the pressures that shaped the decisions of leaders such as Indira Gandhi and the challenges economists faced in steering policy. In 1966, Indira Gandhi made the politically fraught decision to devalue the Indian rupee – a move in which Bhagwati's influence was evident. The prime minister invited him to a confidential discussion. Engerman neatly sums up Bhagwati's dilemmas and his responses to political pressures. 'Yet as he (Bhagwati) recalled, the Prime Minister's interests were purely political, 'for which my economics training had not prepared me,'' Engerman writes, adding that Bhagwati 'soon enough proposed a range of possible efforts to adjust the effective value of the rupee, without necessarily taking the fraught step of formal devaluation.' Engerman's portrayal of Bhagwati as a counterweight to the more structuralist thinking of Sen and K. N. Raj at the Delhi School of Economics underscores the intellectual and contextual complexities of the time. It also highlights the spirited debates that shaped the ideological divide between the two camps and, in turn, influenced the trajectory of the Indian economy. 'The Raj-Sen model's neglect of foreign trade symbolised a broader Indian tendency to omit foreign trade from policy discussions – a phenomenon that entered the Indian economic lexicon, thanks to Singh, as export pessimism,' Engerman notes. He goes on to outline the long-term effects of India's Third Five Year Plan (1961–66), and how the divergence between the Raj-Sen model and the Bhagwati-Singh approach to trade shaped the trajectory of policy. Engerman writes: '… this strategy also produced perennial foreign exchange shortages, and thus the pressing need for foreign aid… Much as Bhagwati had observed, the Third Plan era saw new forms of domestic market regulation, and the emergence of a dynamic in which failures of regulation led to only more layers of regulation.' He notes that the phrase 'license-permit-quota raj' first emerged during this period. The inequality debates influenced economic policy across South Asia. Engerman's discussion of Bhagwati's reasoning – that inequality was not a lasting economic problem, as it would eventually diminish in line with the Kuznets curve – offers an illuminating perspective on why the argument failed to resonate in India, and how the debates were historically framed and perceived in the region. Sen's work in the 1980s, in which he developed his capabilities approach and alternative formulations of development, is engagingly recounted. As Prime Minister of India, Singh pushed through the Food Security Bill in 2013, his flagship anti-poverty programme. Engerman's account of how the Bill became 'just one skirmish in a broader battle that Bhagwati waged against Sen' – a clash over economic ideology – is compelling. Author's skills as a descriptive historian The author's skills as a descriptive historian are evident throughout the book. His portrayal of Sobhan's role in Bangladesh during the critical decade of the 1980s, and his contribution to the development of concepts such as South-South cooperation, raises interesting questions about the gains that might have accrued from true economic cooperation. Engerman's description of what he terms Sen's 'often-abstruse articles' used to introduce questions of social choice and to offer a new approach to the problems of poverty and inequality – is thought-provoking, and provides one of the few genuine glimpses into the personalities of the book's main protagonists. In the end, one might ask whether Engerman's tendency, as a historian, to focus on the minutiae of South Asia's economic development – though illuminating – distracts at times from deeper insights into the theoretical rifts of the period and the evolution of ideas within development economics, many of which remain contested. Might it have been more fruitful to delve further into the protagonists' intellectual doubts, and the global political cross-currents that shaped them? Do the minutiae of events risk overshadowing the broader evolution of ideas? Events undoubtedly shape individuals, but for the 'apostles' of development, their uncertainties, intellectual shifts, contemporary global political contexts, and evolving frameworks of thought are just as critical. Even with such reservations, the book's meticulous research, vivid narration, careful chronology, and focus on six influential thinkers – Amartya Sen, Manmohan Singh, Mahbub ul Haq, Jagdish Bhagwati, Rehman Sobhan, and Lal Jayawardena – make Apostles of Development a valuable addition to the literature on economics, economic history, and the development of ideas. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump Can and Should Fire Fed Boss Over Economy
Federal Reserve kingpin Jerome Powell is busy doing what he does best: sabotaging a prosperous economy so that President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans lose popularity. Hes also ignoring Trump, whom voters will judge for the economys performance and whom the Constitution says runs the executive branch of which the Fed is a part. This is old hat for Powell, who, after being installed by Trump in 2018, got straight to work undermining his bosss economic recovery. You may recall that one of the circumstances that brought an unusual candidate like Trump to power in 2016 was the preceding decade of economic malaise. The Obama years averaged just 2.1% annual growth - the most lethargic economic recovery since World War II. It was fashionable among establishment economists to say that growth above this level, especially the 4.3% average annual growth of the Reagan boom, was simply unobtainable. Big-government economists - practically a redundant phrase today - called it "secular stagnation." Enter Trump. Upon taking office, he immediately began deregulating the U.S. economy, particularly in the energy sector. He worked with Congress to lower the corporate tax rate from 35%, which was nearly the highest among advanced economies, to a more competitive 21%. He also cut personal income taxes for every income bracket, which meant lower taxes for the majority of small business owners who pull company income and taxes onto their personal tax returns. Trump also incentivized corporations to bring home capital they held overseas. Apple alone said it would bring home a majority of its roughly $252 billion in offshore reserves, paying a one-time tax of $38 billion. The results for the broader economy were impressive. Annualized GDP growth in the quarter Trump took office was 2.0%. By the end of the year, it had jumped to 4.6%. Unemployment dropped from 4.7% to 4.0%. Manufacturing jobs, which totaled nearly 17 million when NAFTA was enacted in 1994 and globalization ensued, had fallen to 12.3 million when Trump took office. Within a year, the sector saw modest improvement to 12.5 million jobs. Oil production increased from 8.9 million to 10 million barrels per day during that year. (It would reach 13 million later in Trumps first term.) But Powell was having none of it. Like most of his predecessors and colleagues at the Federal Reserve, Powell adheres to the discredited Keynesian school of economics, which holds that the government should play a preponderant role in the economy, managing demand through government spending. Keynesians distrust free markets, free people, and the supply side of the economy that produces tangible goods. They believe economic growth leads inevitably to inflation, despite repeated economic expansions, including most notably Reagans, in which the expansion of the private-sector economy leads to more goods and services produced and stable prices. In 2018, Powell saw looming inflation where there was none and tightened monetary policy for the first time since 2008. When Trump was elected in 2016, the federal funds effective rate stood at 0.41%. Despite no inflation, the Fed began a relentless cycle of rate increases that reached 2.2% in time for the 2018 midterm elections, when Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives to Democrats, leading eventually to Trumps impeachment. Beyond being a Keynesian, Powell is also a fool. Trumps first term isnt the only time he saw inflation where there was none, or failed to see inflation when it was obvious. During the Biden administration, long after the pandemic had peaked, Powell enabled continued federal spending at crisis levels despite the lack of a crisis. Bidens Treasury Department issued bonds to pay for unprecedented deficits in excess of $1.5 trillion. This only worked because Powell had the Fed buy the bonds with dollars created out of thin air. He also tried to goose the Biden economy by buying mortgages from banks immediately after they were issued. The Feds balance sheet of debt it owned grew from $7.4 trillion when Biden took office to a peak of $10 trillion just over a year later. Powell also kept interest rates near zero even as inflation caused by his dilution of the dollar skyrocketed. Inflation peaked at over 9% in 2022, and the cumulative inflation of the Biden years and Powells debasement of the currency eliminated more than 20% of Americans purchasing power. Powell and his establishment friends had assured Americans that inflation was "transient" when it wasnt. Powell was eventually forced to acknowledge inflation and reluctantly began hiking interest rates to above 5%. He then started lowering them just before the 2024 election in an effort to help Democrats keep the White House. But the easing stopped when Trump took office. Even as central banks in Europe have cut rates due to the lack of inflation, Powell and his clique at the Fed have refused to do so, keeping them at sustained heights not seen in 20 years. Trump has repeatedly pressured Powell to lower rates. He did so again on June 6 when the government reported that job growth had moderated and revised downward the job growth reported in previous months. If a Republican president pressuring Powell could work, it would have worked by now. Instead, Trump will have to fire Powell and replace him with a pro-private-sector-growth banker who takes guidance from the president. Powell and many establishment pooh-bahs think such a move would be illegal. After Trumps reelection, Powell vowednot to resign and said his termination is "not permitted under the law." In fact, the Federal Reserve Act does allow Powells removal "for cause," and grotesque incompetence and political conniving ought both to qualify. But in fact, the whole idea of an "independent" Federal Reserve is unconstitutional, and Trump should fire Powell not only to save the economic recovery but to restore the power of the presidency and recognize the reality that the American people hold the president responsible for economic performance. If he is on the hook to perform, he must control the tools to do so. Article II of the Constitution states plainly, "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." In the Federalist Papers #70, Alexander Hamilton explained the necessity of the strong executive created by the then-draft Constitution to skeptics: "A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government." Its as though Hamilton could foresee Powell and the Fed of 2025. There should be no doubt that the Framers of the Constitution intended the president to have the power to fire anyone as part of his responsibility to supervise the unitary executive branch. What was true in 1789 is still true today: any schmuck in Washington knows no bureaucrat will pay you much attention unless you might plausibly take away his job or budget. Creating a person beyond the reach of the president in the executive branch would be like creating an unelected politburo in Congress to handle certain issues, or a special court completely independent from the Supreme Court to handle certain legal cases. Voters would see such actions as obviously unconstitutional attempts to weaken those pillars of democracy. So too is a theoretically independent Fed - an essentially fascist construct that purports to put monetary policy beyond the reach of the president, weakening the office held by the only man who represents all of the American people. In recent years, the Supreme Court has consistently held that the president has the right to fire executive branch officials. It did so again last month in allowing Trump to dismiss members of supposedly independent federal agencies. There was, however, a glitch. The unsigned order stated that: "The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States." This red herring in the courts order implied its recognition of the presidents power to fire might not extend to the Fed. In reality, there is nothing "quasi-private" about an organization that sets interest rates and decides how many dollars to print. Furthermore, the court should take note of another "distinct historical tradition" that began in Franklin Roosevelts administration of pondering packing the court with new justices when its rulings are at odds with the wishes of administrations and Congresses. Its better to stick with what the Constitution means and says lest a flexible view of the Framers intent turn around and bite the court or Congress in their asses. Furthermore, make-believe about an independent Federal Reserve was more believable when Fed chairmen took cues from presidents regardless of their political party. More recently, Fed bosses have joined the rest of the Deep State in seeking to help Democrats and harm Republicans. Firing Powell and dispensing with the fiction of his unfireability will be good for the economy, good for the presidency, and good for democracy. Christian Whiton was a senior advisor at the State Department in the second Bush and first Trump administrations and served as an adviser to the secretary of state and other senior officials about public affairs and East Asia matters. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the National Interest and a principal at Rockies Aria LLC, a public affairs and government relations firm.
