Bob Murphy

So I think that, yes, the Fed has always been political.

In fact, the ostensible independence, that was only...

formally established after World War II with the Treasury-Fed Plaza Accords, right?

So it was just a matter of course, it was written into what it was supposed to be doing, that the Fed's function was to help the Treasury finance the World Wars, for example, right?

So this idea of independence is a relatively recent claim.

And I think it's largely just, again, to make everything look like it's above board when in fact it's not.

Another example,

when the Fed was doing all those rounds of QE was also, you know, during the Obama years when they had four years in a row of trillion dollar plus deficits, right?

So I don't think that was a coincidence that the Fed decided, hey, we want to load up on treasury debt right when the federal government was issuing so much of it.

So again, this idea that they're independent, you know, Walmart is an independent company, but it's not that their CEO has to get approved by Congress, right?

So that doesn't really, really work.

So there is that element, but again,

In practice, if the people who are running the Fed on a day-to-day basis, if they decide to go rogue and deviate from the script, they have a lot of power.

And so I do think you see these squabbles.

And as with a lot of things, I think the issue with Donald Trump is he talks very frankly.

He doesn't pepper his words and use nice euphemisms.

He just kind of says the situation.

So it's not that much of a departure from how things have always been.

It's just Trump is more frank about it.

Well, sure.