My concern has been that the Trump administration wants to return to the money policy of the 1970s, when presidents effectively controlled monetary policy. If they thought their reelection prospects were becoming iffy, the simply gave the economy a little jolt of lower interest rates (other than the heroic Gerald Ford, who became an object lesson because he lost the subsequent election aftr replacing Richard Nixon). Naturally, nobody reversed course post-election. The cumulative result of a decade of this was runaway inflation and a third-world-country-like rush to hold physical assets as a defense. The cure for this, administered by Paul Volcker, the head of a newly independent Federal Reserve, was to reverse course on rates. It took years, long Treasuries at 20%, and a deep recession to undo the horrible economic damage that came from rates being too low for too long.

We’re a half-century later. Again the president is expressing his strong desire for lower interest rates to create a more feel-good economy. The Fed, however, stands in his way. Hence, his efforts to undermine its authority.

But maybe tariffs are coming to the rescue, if that’s the right word. Their negative effect on the economy–expressed so far this year in a sharp drop in the world value of the dollar–is now showing up both in higher prices and a falloff in new employment (given the ICE campaign of fear and deportation, my guess is that the actual job situation is considerably worse than the official figures portray). So the country may actually need lower rates to offset a harmful tariff policy. Whew!! –that’s probably a too-positive word, but that’s the best I can do.