Does an Independent Fed *Raise* Inflation?


<p>If Trump takes over the Fed will inflation get even worse?</p>
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<p>Or is the Fed the heroic defender of hard money that its defenders claim?</p>
<p>Last week, <a href="https://youtube.com/shorts/Q6M-QM92elM?feature=shared&quot; rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Donald Trump fired Fed member Lisa Cook</a> for alleged mortgage fraud &mdash; the first time in the Fed&rsquo;s 112 years a member has been fired.</p>
<p>Cook apparently has zero expertise in monetary policy &mdash; her academic career consists of&nbsp;cooking data to claim racism. Still, she&rsquo;s hired a lawyer and is suing to keep her job, so depending on how the Supremes swing, she could stick around.</p>
<p>This sent our mainstream Keynesian oligarchy into full panic mode at the prospect of the Fed coming under the control of the elected President instead of the unelected banker junta.</p>
<p>Voters. Running Countries. Insanity.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.moneymetals.com/uploads/content/Federal-Reserve-Independence-PCE-Inflation-Peter-St-Onge-Money-Metals.jpg&quot; width="800" height="477" alt="" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></p>
<h2>The Myth of Fed Independence</h2>
<p>To hear Keynesians tell it, we&rsquo;re going straight to Weimar, wheelbarrows of money and all.</p>
<p>To be fair, we&rsquo;re going to Weimar anyway since Congress spends like a crackhead with a trillion-dollar visa. But they claim it&rsquo;ll go faster once voters get a hold of the Fed.</p>
<p>Now, this debate's been around for decades, with people like Murray Rothbard and Ron Paul arguing <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2025/07/12/the-myth-of-fed-independence-004190&quot; rel="noreferrer">fed independence is a myth</a>, propaganda for an organization that will always serve the <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2025/08/27/gold-and-the-myth-of-fed-independence-004297&quot; rel="noreferrer">dark alliance of government and banks</a> it was built to serve, while acting as an engineered scapegoat to insulate elected representatives from voters.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.moneymetals.com/uploads/content/The-Economy-and-Fed-Chairs-Peter-St-Onge-Money-Metals.jpg&quot; width="800" height="510" alt="" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></p>
<p>It&rsquo;s actually worse; I tallied up monetary policy under Democrat and Republican presidents and found Democrats get much lower rates — they get the cheap money boom. While Republicans get recession-inducing rates.</p>
<p>In case you wonder about those charts showing the economy does better under Democrats.</p>
<p>Still, Keynesian professors and financial journalists argue voters would make it even worse because they'll demand easy money booms that inevitably cause inflation.</p>
<h2>Lisa Cook&rsquo;s Natural Experiment</h2>
<p>Well, we just had a fantastic natural experiment from Trump&rsquo;s firing of Cook in the form of bond yields. Which tells us what markets — not pundits — think will happen to inflation.</p>
<p>So Trump floated firing Cook at 10 am on August 22nd, saying, "I'll fire her if she doesn't resign."</p>
<p><img src="https://www.moneymetals.com/uploads/content/2-Year-US-Treasury-Peter-St-Onge-Money-Metals.jpg&quot; width="800" height="354" alt="" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></p>
<p>The comments immediately sent 2-year bond yields plunging — meaning markets expect lower short-term rates. This is what you'd expect, since Trump's been pretty clear that he wants rate cuts to goose the economy.</p>
<p>But what was interesting is that yields also plunged on both the 10-year and 30-year treasury bonds, which are key measures of inflation.</p>
<p>As in, inflation will be lower if Trump takes over the Fed.</p>
<div>In fact, the 10-year dropped almost 10 basis points in 90 minutes, which is close to what it normally moves in a month.</div>
<p>In other words, taking the data at face value, markets think an independent Fed raises long-term inflation.</p>
<p>This would be counter to the overwhelming consensus of monetary economists who claim the Fed lowers inflation. It&rsquo;s worth noting that many are paid by the Fed in academic grants, so they would say that.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.moneymetals.com/uploads/content/10-Year-30-Year-US-Treasury-Peter-St-Onge-Money-Metals.jpg&quot; width="800" height="191" alt="" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></p>
<p>If I had to guess, what's driving the numbers is that the Fed has already lowered rates to print as much inflation as it can get away with — what I call the Pitchfork Standard. As in, voter anger at high inflation or low jobs.</p>
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<p>But greater Presidential control reduces the other half of Fed inflation, the trillions quietly flooded to bankers in so-called Quantitative Easing.</p>
<p>So rates don't change with Presidential control. But the automatic bailouts to Wall Street shrink since they&rsquo;re unpopular.</p>
<h2>What&rsquo;s Next</h2>
<p>Ideally, Trump can break the Fed and let the economy run itself. Like Andrew Jackson did in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2024/11/29/how-to-end-the-fed-003653&quot; rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/f9ebbb82-c1a5-40c3-9914-bb9da8330f65?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMWI5YWl3In0.o-RJcumCJm32z0-fPDbsH8ksWzk3G2-ENra_QtGncpM&amp;amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1757160364905000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3j6y7HLb6gLaKuDeDnQR4B">abolishing the central bank</a>&nbsp;for manipulating the economy into booms and busts.</p>
<p>But the next best thing is to break the economic oligarchy and hand control — and accountability — back to the people.</p>
<p>At which point, politicians will actually have to answer for the inflation, the recessions, the bailouts, and the lost jobs.</p>

      



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