Timothy Birdnow

Dana Mathewson and I were discussing the Republican electoral prospects and had an interesting discussion.

Dana observes:

"It's the economy, Stupid." Or so our wise people keep telling us. I keep hearing that the only people that follow the children are those inside the Beltway and on the coasts. I watch what Bill Katz (Urgent Agenda) tells us about
the Rasmussen Tracker. And I haven't lost hope yet. Of course, the election is centuries away, so to speak.

This from Tim:

That's why what is happening with the Fed is so important. Please note that Trump tried to appoint two good men to the Federal Reserve board and both were taken out. That is absolutely critical, if my reading on this is correct, because they would have stopped the board from crashing the economy with over-aggressive interest rate hikes and the like. I don't trust Jerome Powerll at all. I suspect he's biding his time so the economy will turn sour just before the election. Stephen Moore and Herman Cain would both have acted to stop the Keynsian currency manipulation that Powell will engage in over the next year and a half.

Jerome Powell was called a "clone" of Janet Yellen, Obama's Fed Chair, and Conservative groups like Club for Growth were furious Trump appointed him. He's as swampy a swamp rat as they come. Why Trump picked him is anybody's guess; likely he did it to get the appointment through without a huge fight. Picking his battles. But the Fed has crashed economies in the past with bad management (most notably the rate hikes and contraction of the money supply which caused the Great Depression) and I wouldn't put it past Powell to take steps to see that Trump is not re-elected. A timely recession would do the trick.

I think Trump realized his mistake and tried to fix it with his board picks, but the Democrats know the game too, and aren't going to let Trump change the board makeup. The real problem is McConnell, who won't move these appointees through. McConnell wants Trump gone almost as badly as the Democrats do, but he can't look disloyal. So he's stalled on innumerable Trump appointments, has encouraged the Republicans to run on pork barrel issues and distance themselves from Trump, etc.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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