Tim Stenovec

They actually cared about the politics.

Now, it wasn't that Hoover was telling them exactly what to do, but they were so scared, not that they were just going to get hauled up in front of Congress for making the wrong choice, but that the entire thing, which people still called back then the experiment experiment,

at that point, that Congress could effectively disband this very idea.

And so I raise that only because it's clear to me that actually the independence of the Fed matters.

In fact, one of the reasons I think that they didn't act more forcefully in 1929 and in 1930 and after that was in part because there was their own concern about the politics, putting aside whether the White House was telling them one thing to do or the other.

Less so, or at least up until recently, less so.

I think that maybe in the same way that clearly those governors of the Fed back then were cognizant and nervous about the politics.

I mean, I don't think this Fed thinks they're going to be disbanded.

But I think that they're cognizant.

They are very aware, very aware of what the president's saying, what their reputations are going to be like as a result, what people are saying about them, whether they have to do certain things to demonstrate their independence.

I mean, that's the thing.

The idea of demonstrating your independence effectively means you might even make a decision that might not be the decision you'd otherwise make, but you're doing it for your own reputation.

So, yes, I think that all of that is not healthy.

I have a view that is maybe contrarian in this space, which is there's a board and there's a number of people on that board.

I've never believed that the entire Fed is controlled by one human being.

It just isn't.

And so I think it's very important who is running it.

I'm not...

telling you it isn't.

But I do think there will be people on that board