Indeed there is an important hierarchy, as you have identified. In contrast, the mainstream media seem unable or unwilling to differentiate the silly and the annoying from grave threats.
It takes years to build and a heartbeat to destroy. For those who issue the world’s “risk-free” assets, perfection is not optional, it is the cost of trust.
The independence of monetary authorities is not a matter of choice; it is an absolute necessity.
Because I believe you to be intellectually honest, I'm sure you can appreciate this same essay could have been published in 2013 or 2021 with entirely the same level of concern, conviction and sincerity. "Pens and phones", politically motivated prosecutions, an "Inflation Reduction(!) Act", and all the rest of it.
The reality is what constitutes "populism" and "transgression of norms" is ever in the eye of the beholder, and utterly dependent upon who's ox is gored.
I do agree with your proposition about separating noise from signal before becoming suitably outraged. Even more critical is to check one's tribalism when doing so.
You are brainwashed. Trump has publicly called for prosecution of his enemies. Biden never did. Trump was prosecuted for crimes committed in plain sight. Biden’s Justice Dept. did not have trouble getting an independent grand jury to accept their indictments.If Biden was supposedly directing the prosecution of his enemies, why couldn’t he keep his own son from being indicted?
Biden did not have to publicly declare his intent to pursue Trump, Merrick Garland just went ahead and appointed a special prosecutor, no doubt with no memory of having been leveraged out of a SCOTUS seat.
And Letitia James made it a campaign promise that she would “ get Trump!”
As far as Hunter, see the end of term hand signed pardon. Always good to have the final trump card ( pun intended.)
I apologize for my fellow commenters, but certainly you can see the level of transgression differs substantially in its severity, at least from what the public can see.
What kind of fucking loser writes like this on Substack: "Mr. Shinder is a highly regarded financial expert and frequent lecturer, panelist and published author on finance, public policy, economics, and current events."
By the way, you have 13 followers while clearly trying to cultivate them. Pretty pathetic.
A quote from the HBO series Task: “Wisdom is knowing what to overlook.” So, yes, we need to overlook many of the meaningless things that DJT says, but focus on the consequential stuff more. And the persecution (not prosecution) of Powell is consequential for sure. What will be interesting to see is whether the other members of the Open Market Committee fall into line, fearing, as they might, that failure to do so would lead to other “investigations.”
Not defending this action - it's designed as yet another salvo to destroy the old system and usher in a new global tyrannical one - but with regard to the FED, they have no legitimacy.
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.... I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies...." -Thomas Jefferson
Since its spurious inception in 1913, the "price stability" mandated FED has looted 98+% of the US dollar's value.
Money creation belongs to the people, not to a private bank masquerading around as a government agency (the word Federal is to fool us) that first counterfeits and then lends that money to us at interest to be repaid to them while inflating away its value.
"Permit me to issue the currency of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws." -Rothschild
You have accurately described the core issue. Powell is running a corrupt and non Constitutional organization, “ quasi-independent agencies” are no where mentioned in the organizing documents of the country. The concept that Fed answers to no one is anathema to the principles of the republic. It should not exist to manipulate the currency and economy of the US as a centralized “all wise economists” scheme.
Powell is just another example of a narcissistic bureaucrat with no regard for accountability. Like Federal District court judges issuing national injunctions, ego driven and immune from personal consequences of poor decisions.
Trump's and his administrations' hypocrisy is thick enough to cut with a knife. The mission of the enterprise is intimidation and subjugation. Improving the fortunes of his working class followers was never his intent.
Rejection of DJT actions, even when not objectionable, on the grounds that if Trump wants it, it must be bad, is part of what over-reaction means. He's a goon, but reflexive rejection simply keeps him in control of the agenda.
Powell is a political hack and should be called out; and then we can continue the debate about the Fed. It would hardly be surprising if yet another priviledged Democrat had abused their office for self agrandizement.
For trump, it's always been about timing. And chaos. And this past week has been a sterling example: Venezuela, the handling of the cold-blooded murder of Renee Nichole Good, and now, the prosecution of Mr. Powell, plunked down right in the middle of it all. And the Epstein files. Let's not allow us remember that, in the middle of this disgusting clown show. Mr. Powell's prosecution showing up now is not by chance. No wonder our stress level is in the stratosphere.
I share your concern about such a move but it is not a prosecution, it is an investigation. And there it is not entirely new news - concerns about the matter have been raised for months. We are now just a few months before the expiration of Powell's term and so I doubt any such move can affect decision making of the chair who is not going to be renominated. Therefore, the thesis that it is a move to influence the Fed's present interest rate posture does not ring practical/realistic. And the next chair is going to be Presiden't nominee who would not have been responsible for anything related to this investigation (and if this is a political interference, I don't see how this would be helpful to such nominee both during the nomination and during the beginning of his term).
On the other hand, your analysis of the political related to financial policy is missing the elephant - the Fed is not the only organization responsible for it but it cooperated knowingly or through a huge professional failure with the inflation explosion it oversaw. Together with gleefully idiotic economic policy in the beginning of the Biden administration which ignited such explosion (to the chagrine of their own economist supporters such as Summers).
So you are focusing, rightly so, in what you see as an attempt to threaten the Fed, but you are seeing the political impact or source of it through the lens of a creeping authoritarian government whereas your analysis escapes comparison of the real economic atrocity inflicted on the country by those with impeccable democratic credentials (I assume, from your POV), other then minor details of a senile leader being substituted in reality by the unelected underlings.
Yascha, please provide perspective/context, otherwise it looks monochrome.
I disagree with Trump’s threats against Powell. At the same time the Fed’s spending a couple billion dollars to remodel two buildings that house a few hundred people demonstrates a need for greater oversight of the Fed.
“More likely than not, U.S. monetary policy will be set by a competent economist until May.”- That’s being offered as reassurance, but it’s actually the warning.
What matters isn’t what happens in May. It’s what everyone learns before May: whether institutional independence is real, conditional, or revocable on demand.
This isn’t a linear ‘grind.’ It’s a risk-recalibration problem. Once officials, markets, and future appointees internalize that independence is unsafe, behavior shifts even if the institution still exists on paper.
The danger isn’t sudden collapse. It’s a quiet phase shift where constraints remain formally intact, but no longer function in practice.
Two questions seem unavoidable:
1. Who is the U.S. becoming if this trajectory continues unchallenged?
2. And what is one small, realistic thing each of us could do now that’s easier than living with the version of the country this path produces?
3. Will the USD remain the reserve currency of the world ? The independence and relative trustworthiness of the Fed has always underlaid that status. Losing these two USPs would probably mean that other countries and non-US corporations start putting their money in another currency, or a basket of them. Given the size of the US debt, that would create problems for the USA.
'institutional Independence' of an executive branch agency from the Chief Executive is unconstitutional, having major U.S. policy set by an unelected rogue bureaucrat who has evaded oversight and outright lied to our actual elected officials to cover up major malfeasance in his agency goes far beyond being a 'warning' to being a 'crime', and ensuring that such a thing be investigated properly and prosecuted as appropriate is the legal responsibility of every branch given that an executive branch employee has allegedly rejected the authority of the Chief Executive, deceived Congress, and committed a crime.
You are wrong, and dangerously so, on both counts, for very similar reasons.
1. "Opposition" figures are no more above or below the Law than "Loyalist" figures ought to be. If we can prosecute genuine wrongdoing purely because the person doing it happens to belong to the other Party, then we don't actually HAVE 'Rule of Law'. This is especially pertinent after Democrats twisted the laws into knots with outright ILLEGAL surveillance and spurious lawfare against Republicans and Trump in particular. No, we refuse to accept a one-way rachet where the Republicans are denied the protections of the Law and Democrats are immune to the consequences of breaking the Law.
2. We get the Administration that we vote for, and deservedly so. Reread our Constitution please, THERE IS NO FOURTH BRANCH! There's no such thing as an 'independent' government agency, FULL STOP. EVERY 'Executive Branch' Agency necessarily answers to the 'Chief Executive', PERIOD, Congress does not have any power to 'insulate' an executive branch agency from the control of the Chief Executive, that would violate checks and balances. Also, as a practical matter, whether you consider us a 'Democracy' or a 'Republic', in either case a definitive trait of those is that the major decisions are made by people we elected directly or have indirect control over through the people we elected: an unelected bureaucrat making major decisions for our economy with no meaningful direction or oversight from our elected officials? THAT is Authoritarianism. The Fed Chair is and must be an employee answering to the President, not a dictator arbitrarily imposing his own decisions on the country. Under our Constitution, elected officials MUST make the big decisions, anyone else is limited to advising and implementing.
So no, you're attacking the legitimately elected official who is actually doing the job he was elected and constitutionally empowered and required to do (ensure that the laws are faithfully enforced) and you're defending the unelected bureaucrat who has illegitimately operated outside our constitutional structure and illegally perjured himself. You're taking the side of corruption and authoritarianism here, not standing against them.
They’ve only opened an investigation. They are not yet prosecuting him. You should mention this, so people like me don’t waste time Googling this after reading.
Prosecuting Jerome Powell absolutely appears to cross a red line. However, you make the statement: "Powell is only the latest in a litany of political opponents, from James Comey to Letitia James, that Trump’s Department of Justice has prosecuted for evidently partisan reasons." The statement above is actually wrong and obfuscates very real and different situations, two of which involve real and very serious crimes. Or am I missing something?
The only thing you're missing is that Powell committing perjury to cover up what appears to be embezzlement and malfeasance is ALSO a very real and serious crime. The defense of Powell is the partisan distortion of the law here, not the investigation.
Indeed there is an important hierarchy, as you have identified. In contrast, the mainstream media seem unable or unwilling to differentiate the silly and the annoying from grave threats.
It takes years to build and a heartbeat to destroy. For those who issue the world’s “risk-free” assets, perfection is not optional, it is the cost of trust.
The independence of monetary authorities is not a matter of choice; it is an absolute necessity.
Read the full story:
https://open.substack.com/pub/marketszoon/p/the-cycle-of-mistrust?r=58uzcq&utm_medium=ios
Yascha, a thoughtful piece as always.
Because I believe you to be intellectually honest, I'm sure you can appreciate this same essay could have been published in 2013 or 2021 with entirely the same level of concern, conviction and sincerity. "Pens and phones", politically motivated prosecutions, an "Inflation Reduction(!) Act", and all the rest of it.
The reality is what constitutes "populism" and "transgression of norms" is ever in the eye of the beholder, and utterly dependent upon who's ox is gored.
I do agree with your proposition about separating noise from signal before becoming suitably outraged. Even more critical is to check one's tribalism when doing so.
You are brainwashed. Trump has publicly called for prosecution of his enemies. Biden never did. Trump was prosecuted for crimes committed in plain sight. Biden’s Justice Dept. did not have trouble getting an independent grand jury to accept their indictments.If Biden was supposedly directing the prosecution of his enemies, why couldn’t he keep his own son from being indicted?
Biden did not have to publicly declare his intent to pursue Trump, Merrick Garland just went ahead and appointed a special prosecutor, no doubt with no memory of having been leveraged out of a SCOTUS seat.
And Letitia James made it a campaign promise that she would “ get Trump!”
As far as Hunter, see the end of term hand signed pardon. Always good to have the final trump card ( pun intended.)
I apologize for my fellow commenters, but certainly you can see the level of transgression differs substantially in its severity, at least from what the public can see.
You are deluding yourself. You likely know it on some level, too.
You can always count on a leftist to make a personal attack when they're holding a weak hand. Cheers!
Oh, and believe me, on no level do I think I'm wrong in this. As Curt Cignetti might say, "Google me".
I’d bet my life I’m more conservative than you, you fucking moron.
Sincerely -- get help.
Sincerely - you're a thirsty and pathetic bitch.
What kind of fucking loser writes like this on Substack: "Mr. Shinder is a highly regarded financial expert and frequent lecturer, panelist and published author on finance, public policy, economics, and current events."
By the way, you have 13 followers while clearly trying to cultivate them. Pretty pathetic.
Dude -- good thing this is online, and not IRL. You'd get popped, hard.
I rarely use Substack, so "cultivation" is kind of a weird comment.
Wake up on the wrong side of the bed today, chief?
A quote from the HBO series Task: “Wisdom is knowing what to overlook.” So, yes, we need to overlook many of the meaningless things that DJT says, but focus on the consequential stuff more. And the persecution (not prosecution) of Powell is consequential for sure. What will be interesting to see is whether the other members of the Open Market Committee fall into line, fearing, as they might, that failure to do so would lead to other “investigations.”
Not defending this action - it's designed as yet another salvo to destroy the old system and usher in a new global tyrannical one - but with regard to the FED, they have no legitimacy.
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.... I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies...." -Thomas Jefferson
Since its spurious inception in 1913, the "price stability" mandated FED has looted 98+% of the US dollar's value.
Money creation belongs to the people, not to a private bank masquerading around as a government agency (the word Federal is to fool us) that first counterfeits and then lends that money to us at interest to be repaid to them while inflating away its value.
"Permit me to issue the currency of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws." -Rothschild
You have accurately described the core issue. Powell is running a corrupt and non Constitutional organization, “ quasi-independent agencies” are no where mentioned in the organizing documents of the country. The concept that Fed answers to no one is anathema to the principles of the republic. It should not exist to manipulate the currency and economy of the US as a centralized “all wise economists” scheme.
Powell is just another example of a narcissistic bureaucrat with no regard for accountability. Like Federal District court judges issuing national injunctions, ego driven and immune from personal consequences of poor decisions.
Trump's and his administrations' hypocrisy is thick enough to cut with a knife. The mission of the enterprise is intimidation and subjugation. Improving the fortunes of his working class followers was never his intent.
Rejection of DJT actions, even when not objectionable, on the grounds that if Trump wants it, it must be bad, is part of what over-reaction means. He's a goon, but reflexive rejection simply keeps him in control of the agenda.
Powell is a political hack and should be called out; and then we can continue the debate about the Fed. It would hardly be surprising if yet another priviledged Democrat had abused their office for self agrandizement.
For trump, it's always been about timing. And chaos. And this past week has been a sterling example: Venezuela, the handling of the cold-blooded murder of Renee Nichole Good, and now, the prosecution of Mr. Powell, plunked down right in the middle of it all. And the Epstein files. Let's not allow us remember that, in the middle of this disgusting clown show. Mr. Powell's prosecution showing up now is not by chance. No wonder our stress level is in the stratosphere.
I share your concern about such a move but it is not a prosecution, it is an investigation. And there it is not entirely new news - concerns about the matter have been raised for months. We are now just a few months before the expiration of Powell's term and so I doubt any such move can affect decision making of the chair who is not going to be renominated. Therefore, the thesis that it is a move to influence the Fed's present interest rate posture does not ring practical/realistic. And the next chair is going to be Presiden't nominee who would not have been responsible for anything related to this investigation (and if this is a political interference, I don't see how this would be helpful to such nominee both during the nomination and during the beginning of his term).
On the other hand, your analysis of the political related to financial policy is missing the elephant - the Fed is not the only organization responsible for it but it cooperated knowingly or through a huge professional failure with the inflation explosion it oversaw. Together with gleefully idiotic economic policy in the beginning of the Biden administration which ignited such explosion (to the chagrine of their own economist supporters such as Summers).
So you are focusing, rightly so, in what you see as an attempt to threaten the Fed, but you are seeing the political impact or source of it through the lens of a creeping authoritarian government whereas your analysis escapes comparison of the real economic atrocity inflicted on the country by those with impeccable democratic credentials (I assume, from your POV), other then minor details of a senile leader being substituted in reality by the unelected underlings.
Yascha, please provide perspective/context, otherwise it looks monochrome.
I disagree with Trump’s threats against Powell. At the same time the Fed’s spending a couple billion dollars to remodel two buildings that house a few hundred people demonstrates a need for greater oversight of the Fed.
“More likely than not, U.S. monetary policy will be set by a competent economist until May.”- That’s being offered as reassurance, but it’s actually the warning.
What matters isn’t what happens in May. It’s what everyone learns before May: whether institutional independence is real, conditional, or revocable on demand.
This isn’t a linear ‘grind.’ It’s a risk-recalibration problem. Once officials, markets, and future appointees internalize that independence is unsafe, behavior shifts even if the institution still exists on paper.
The danger isn’t sudden collapse. It’s a quiet phase shift where constraints remain formally intact, but no longer function in practice.
Two questions seem unavoidable:
1. Who is the U.S. becoming if this trajectory continues unchallenged?
2. And what is one small, realistic thing each of us could do now that’s easier than living with the version of the country this path produces?
3. Will the USD remain the reserve currency of the world ? The independence and relative trustworthiness of the Fed has always underlaid that status. Losing these two USPs would probably mean that other countries and non-US corporations start putting their money in another currency, or a basket of them. Given the size of the US debt, that would create problems for the USA.
'institutional Independence' of an executive branch agency from the Chief Executive is unconstitutional, having major U.S. policy set by an unelected rogue bureaucrat who has evaded oversight and outright lied to our actual elected officials to cover up major malfeasance in his agency goes far beyond being a 'warning' to being a 'crime', and ensuring that such a thing be investigated properly and prosecuted as appropriate is the legal responsibility of every branch given that an executive branch employee has allegedly rejected the authority of the Chief Executive, deceived Congress, and committed a crime.
You are wrong, and dangerously so, on both counts, for very similar reasons.
1. "Opposition" figures are no more above or below the Law than "Loyalist" figures ought to be. If we can prosecute genuine wrongdoing purely because the person doing it happens to belong to the other Party, then we don't actually HAVE 'Rule of Law'. This is especially pertinent after Democrats twisted the laws into knots with outright ILLEGAL surveillance and spurious lawfare against Republicans and Trump in particular. No, we refuse to accept a one-way rachet where the Republicans are denied the protections of the Law and Democrats are immune to the consequences of breaking the Law.
2. We get the Administration that we vote for, and deservedly so. Reread our Constitution please, THERE IS NO FOURTH BRANCH! There's no such thing as an 'independent' government agency, FULL STOP. EVERY 'Executive Branch' Agency necessarily answers to the 'Chief Executive', PERIOD, Congress does not have any power to 'insulate' an executive branch agency from the control of the Chief Executive, that would violate checks and balances. Also, as a practical matter, whether you consider us a 'Democracy' or a 'Republic', in either case a definitive trait of those is that the major decisions are made by people we elected directly or have indirect control over through the people we elected: an unelected bureaucrat making major decisions for our economy with no meaningful direction or oversight from our elected officials? THAT is Authoritarianism. The Fed Chair is and must be an employee answering to the President, not a dictator arbitrarily imposing his own decisions on the country. Under our Constitution, elected officials MUST make the big decisions, anyone else is limited to advising and implementing.
So no, you're attacking the legitimately elected official who is actually doing the job he was elected and constitutionally empowered and required to do (ensure that the laws are faithfully enforced) and you're defending the unelected bureaucrat who has illegitimately operated outside our constitutional structure and illegally perjured himself. You're taking the side of corruption and authoritarianism here, not standing against them.
They’ve only opened an investigation. They are not yet prosecuting him. You should mention this, so people like me don’t waste time Googling this after reading.
Persecution
Prosecuting Jerome Powell absolutely appears to cross a red line. However, you make the statement: "Powell is only the latest in a litany of political opponents, from James Comey to Letitia James, that Trump’s Department of Justice has prosecuted for evidently partisan reasons." The statement above is actually wrong and obfuscates very real and different situations, two of which involve real and very serious crimes. Or am I missing something?
You’re missing something. They’re both baseless, clearly retaliatory prosecutions.
The only thing you're missing is that Powell committing perjury to cover up what appears to be embezzlement and malfeasance is ALSO a very real and serious crime. The defense of Powell is the partisan distortion of the law here, not the investigation.
Your level of self-delusion here is almost impressive.
Grabbing women by the pussy was a fundamental line. So, spare me.