Two black hats at the OK Corral

The corporate media has just amped up its ten year disinformation campaign against Donald Trump. Seems the Justice Department has launched a criminal probe into the renovations at Federal Reserve headquarters at the Eccles building. One Jerome Powell, chairman of the Fed, is under investigation.

No one disputes this. So why do I use the pejorative “disinformation”?

The forked-tongue establishment alleges it to be a pretext for strong-arming the Fed into cutting interest rates, threatening the Fed’s independence.

What independence? This is where the media are just making things up. In order to lose its independence, the Fed must have been independent in the first place, no? Where is the media’s investigation into that question? Nowhere to be found. It has presented no evidence whatsoever that the Fed is or was independent. Media reporting on its potential loss is therefore pure confabulation.

What if the Fed has been dancing to the tune of Wall Street? Then this would start to make sense. Wall Street might see its control of the Fed under challenge from the White House.

Powell protests Trump’s intrusion as an attempt to interfere with its business of working for the American people. More forked tongue. Which American people benefited from its years of inflationary malfeasance, its printing of trillions of dollars and slashing rates to zero five years ago? Those the most conspicuously benefited were the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and other tech oligarchs. Their fortunes multiplied while small business were closed down. Wall Street and the Hamptons were also on the receiving end of this heist. Ever since, the average “American people” has been suffering the ravages of inflation, while the not-so-average have benefitted at their expense. The K-shaped economy was shaped that way by Powell Inc. There is also a certain element of poetic justice in finding itself politicized after having eased monetary policy into the last election with utterly no justification except possibly … politics. 

So no white hat for Mr Powell.

But if it looked like this was going to be a defense of Mr Trump, well … it’s not. A Trump monetary policy would be even worse. Trump wants to inflate like the dickens and try to paper over the injuries with gimmicks. For example $200B of federal mortgage buying. The best that can be said about this is at least it wouldn’t be being done by the Fed, which has no business encroaching into fiscal policy.

That’s just one of many gimmicks. A 10% cap on credit card rates. New tax loopholes for senior, tip and overtime income. Tariff “dividend” giveaways. Seizing other nations’ oil. This is no better than his predecessor treating the nation’s treasury and oil reserves as his own party’s campaign funds for student loans giveaways and lower gasoline prices to buy votes.

Apparently anything … anything … but get to the root causes of economic illness and address them. Government beats the economy into distress then offers up whiskey and bandaids to make it feel better. 

Now we don’t really know if there was criminal misconduct at the Fed. That’s what investigations are for. But it sure looks bad. I mean for Trump … it looks like this is weaponizing the justice system to get even with or to pressure the Fed. That would be taking a page right out of the dirty playbook that was used against him. In so doing, he would lower himself to his opposition’s level. It sure as hell doesn’t elevate him.

So no white hat for Mr Trump either.