During every presidential election cycle, all eyes are on the Republican and Democrat candidates competing to rule over the nation. This year, the mainstream media and Big Tech campaigned to put former Vice President Joe Biden in the White House, effectively ousting President Donald Trump from the Oval Office – barring reversals in the federal courts or as a result of recounts. Anchors’ and journalists’ adulations suggest that Biden will now be the king of kings in Washington, ushering in a new era of whatever the radical left tells him. But is Biden the kingpin of the United States? Hardly. Once again, the country lost sight of the most powerful person in the U.S. today: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Jerome Powell Versus the World
Jerome Powell
Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, and Jerome Powell. These are the people that piloted the Land of the Free, more so than Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and even Donald Trump. They are the ones who can make or break presidencies, economies, and nations with a simple flip of the printing press switch and a few policy directives. The Fed is the chief Swamp monster whose tentacles spread into every crevice, nook, and cranny inside the corridors of power – in Washington and on Wall Street. Residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and 11 Wall Street hang on to every word uttered by the Eccles Building occupants, whether it is a cut to interest rates or hints as to how they will street the economy.
Since its inception more than a century ago, the Fed has been at the helm of the worst financial crises in the nation’s history: from the Great Depression to the Great Recession to the coronavirus-induced collapse. Each economic downturn exacerbated the Fed’s omnipotence, turning the body into the most awesome force in the universe.
At the height of the market mayhem earlier this year, the Fed unleashed an unlimited and unprecedented quantitative easing campaign that consisted of bailing out the federal, state, and local governments, corporations, and Main Street in perpetuity, costing $150 billion per month in freshly created dollars. It also slashed rates to near zero, flirting with subzero levels never seen before.
During the November Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, Powell reiterated that the Fed has not run out of ammunition, hinting that it could take more significant action if economic conditions worsen. Although it has been continually urging Congress to support the economic recovery with fiscal stimulus and relief, the central bank has all the tools at its disposal to supersede lawmakers and the president.
And politicians would not have it any other way. The Fed is an enabler of reckless behavior, acquiring Treasurys and artificially suppressing interest rates, allowing Republicans and Democrats to send the nation deeper into debt and bankrupt Uncle Sam hundreds of times over. It is why there is a bipartisan cult-like paranoia over any nomination of an outsider to the Fed. You only need to see the handwringing over the nominations of Judy Shelton and Stephen Moore to the Board of Governors to understand how statist Keynesian orthodoxy must never be challenged.
The Fed might not write the laws, but it plays a fundamental role in every subject discussed in federal politics, from infrastructure spending to eternal foreign wars to perpetual bailouts of [insert industry here]. Powell is that man behind the curtain, but he is just a spoke in the wheel, which will be swapped for another monetary apotheosis.
Remember, Remember the Sixteenth of December
It is estimated that 150 million Americans marked November 3 on their calendars. But they should also check off December 16 on their calendars of cats, Baywatch models, and exotic destinations. Why is this a critical day? December 16 is when the FOMC completes its two-day policy meeting where it will deliberate the future of a dozen of its emergency facility programs, including the trillions in credit lending to small business and municipal bond-buying. They are set to expire on December 31. If they are not replaced or extended, you can anticipate a substantial crash on financial markets since every facet of the economy is now dependent on the Fed.
The U.S. has reached a point at which a single Fed policy meeting could be a day of reckoning for America.
Will Biden Make the Fed Go Woke?
With Biden set to move into the White House, the president-elect will likely have a to-do list of who to expunge from the Trump era. Although Powell has uttered passages from the cultural Marxists’ wokenomics textbook over the last year, he might not be the person progressives from a Biden administration would desire. It may be too early to predict who his successor might be, but it is safe to say that it would be somebody willing to expand the Fed’s list of mandates to include being more woke. And this is a dangerous characteristic of an already unconquerable organization that is ready, willing, and able to do the bidding of the White House, no matter who is in charge. With a Biden administration poised to spend trillions of dollars on the hopes and dreams of the socialist left, the Fed will be there to pull the lever on the printing press.
~
Read more from Andrew Moran.
