Will Trump Betray Workers Again By Naming Kevin Warsh As Fed Chair?

Reprinted with permission from CEPR.

A consistent drumbeat in Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency was a promise that he would stand up for the American working class against financial elites who had rigged policy to enrich themselves, a message that clearly resonated with some voters. He has reneged on this commitment in virtually every area of public policy, including providing better health care coverage than Obamacare, crafting better trade agreements, making sure tax cuts go to the middle-class ,and standing up for workers’ rights at work.

This month workers who supported Trump may see another betrayal. It has been reported that Trump may pick Kevin Warsh, who married into a billionaire family, to replace Janet Yellen as the next Chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (BOG). Decisions made by the Fed’s BOG are extraordinarily important for American workers. In recent years, pressure has built for the Fed to begin applying the brake to America’s economic recovery by raising interest rates. The rationale for this is that the Fed must slow growth to tamp down inflationary pressures. Warsh has consistently been on the side advocating for slowing growth to fight inflation. But these inflationary pressures appear nowhere in either wage or price data. And if the Fed hits the brake prematurely, millions of Americans could lose opportunities to work, and tens of millions could see smaller wage increases.

One underappreciated aspect of raising interest rates is that they will put upward pressure on the value of the U.S. dollar, and this stronger dollar will make U.S. exports less competitive on world markets while making foreign imports cheaper to American consumers. This will in turn lead to rising trade deficits which stunt growth in manufacturing employment. Warsh knows about this
argument, but he just doesn’t really care:



-snip-

A Warsh nomination for Fed chair would be a perfect example of how the financial sector capture of the Federal Reserve has hamstrung the economic leverage and bargaining power of low and middle-wage workers. Finance hates inflation and doesn’t especially care if the unemployment rate is unnecessarily high. As a result, the Fed has for decades greatly overweighted its mandate to avoid above-target inflation while underweighting its mandate to pursue maximum employment. Part of the fallout of this frequently too-tight stance of monetary policy has been chronic trade deficits which have cost the country millions of manufacturing jobs. And while growing evidence shows that America’s stance towards globalization in recent decades has privileged the interests of corporations over typical workers, Warsh wants the Fed to be an advocate for doubling-down on this failed approach.


http://www.nationalmemo.com/will-trump-betray-workers-naming-kevin-warsh-fed-chair/

Trump does not care, about anything that is remotely associated with Obama, he will discard Yellen just for his reckless self interests and ego
And how this person (Warsh) got on the board of governors is beyond comprehension