Key Points
- The next Fed chair faces an additional burden: credibility issues now that President Donald Trump has stepped up efforts to exert a heavy hand on monetary policy.
- Trump reportedly is considering naming a “shadow chair” until the current occupant, Jerome Powell, leaves office next year, in an attempt to pressure the Fed into cutting rates.
- “The real loser here is not Jay Powell but his successor,” TS Lombard economist Dario Perkins wrote. “We don’t even know who that person is, and already there are strong doubts about their integrity and what sort of ‘deal’ they have made to secure the position.”
