Podcast series: The Chair 2
The Federal Reserve behind closed doors
Listen to the second series by clicking on these Spotify1 links:
Sebastian Mallaby on Alan Greenspan
David Wessel on Ben Bernanke
Jon Hilsenrath on Janet Yellen
Nick Timiraos on Jerome Powell
When I released the first series of The Chair in August 2024, Kamala Harris had just entered the US presidential race - overturning Donald Trump’s consistent lead, and turning a ten-point betting-odds deficit into a small advantage.
It was starting to look like four more years of liberal, globalist, and institutionalist policymaking so the Federal Reserve (and, incidentally, electing new popes) lacked political sex appeal. To compensate for this, I felt I had to explain why I’d done something as niche as launch a podcast series about a central bank and not even a European one. “To the uninitiated, this may sound dry”, I wrote. “But, while policy can get technical, it can also get personal and political. You don’t have to be a Catholic to enjoy the gamesmanship of papal conclaves, or a lawyer to revel in the dark politics of appointments to or decision-making on the US Supreme Court”.
No need for excuses today: Donald Trump has Made the Fed Personal and Political Again with this (👇) transparent attempt to shift the blame for the inevitable failure of his economic project …
… and refusal to set interest rates based on the price of “eggs” …
As my interviews for the first series with Bob Bremner, Wyatt Wells, and Bill Silber (below) revealed, Trump is not the first president to express frustration with the Chair. But, not until today has the head of America’s independent central bank faced public, personal attacks and the open threat of early termination.
This second series of The Chair ends with a conversation about Powell with Nick Timiraos - the Wall Street Journal’s “Fed whisperer”. But, before that, I talk to two of Nick’s predecessors on the WSJ’s Fed beat: David Wessel on Ben Bernanke - the shy expert on Depression economics who just happened to be in office when another 1929 beckoned - and Jon Hilsenrath on Janet Yellen - the first woman to take the chair and the first human to have held the country’s top three economic-policy jobs. The new series opens with prize-winning business historian Sebastian Mallaby on the 99-year-old enigma that is Alan Greenspan.
Who does Nick Timiraos think will open The Chair, Part 32? Will it be someone with economic credentials or a Fed version of Kash Patel or Pete Hegseth? "Trump wants a loyalist who is credible with the markets,” he says. “That list could include Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary - you could move him over to the Fed, Kevin Hassett, certainly Kevin Warsh; an outside chance, Chris Waller, though I have to think Trump feels like picking the insider last time didn't work out so well for him. Or you have the field ... Will the Senate, which went for Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth in January of 2025, be willing to go for that even now, let alone, depending on ... the short-term pain we see in the economy? I don't know. I think Republicans in the Senate, they've given Trump an awfully long leash. But, in the first term, the Fed was the one place where they put their foot down. They said, no Stephen Moore, no Herman Cain. Judy Shelton almost got in at the very end; if a couple of senators hadn't had Covid, maybe she would have gotten in. But I think my list of Bessent, Warsh, Hassett, Waller, or none of the above. That's how I see it right now".
To listen to the first series, click on these Spotify links:
Mark Nelson on Marriner Eccles
Bob Bremner on Bill Martin
Wyatt Wells on Arthur Burns
Bill Silber on Paul Volcker
Podcast production: Emin Fikić
Podcast artwork: Abbie Hutchins-Jones
Also available on Apple, Amazon, Pocket Cast and all other platforms.
Kidding.