5 ms·

The feds mandate is to maximize employment, stabilize prices, and moderate long-term interest rates. A big part of that is trying to avoid the 'bust' part of a

The feds mandate is to maximize employment, stabilize prices, and moderate long-term interest rates. A big part of that is trying to avoid the 'bust' part of a boom-bust cycle. As evidenced by your post, the fed should not be accountable to the public because the public cannot be expected to spend anytime trying to understand what they do and their methods of action.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
cle 7y ago
Any body holding significant power is at some level accountable to the public, regardless of laws or regulations or how little the public may understand. If the Fed can’t make the case to most citizens that it should exist and retain its power, then it is doomed, and no philosophical arguments could change that.
cryptica 7y ago
The Fed should just hire all citizens in the country as employees. That would be a more efficient way to maximize employment.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
kds3 7y ago
> A big part of that is trying to avoid the 'bust' part of a boom-bust cycle. The thing is you can't avoid the bust part, you can only soften it in a way it is not harmful for (some) people.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
  You can't avoid the bust unless you avoid the boom. But the Fed makes no effort to avoid the boom.
  - dcftoapv 7y ago
    wtf are you talking about? They were raising interest rates and rolling assets off their balance sheet for the better part of 2018.
    - legolas2412 7y ago
      And they kept the interest rates zero from 2008 to 2015, and spent trillions to prop up asset prices via quantitive easing. When they pumped the price to astonishing heights till 2015, what they did in 2018 was too late.
      - dcftoapv 7y ago
        Too late for what? This was going to happen no matter what the fed did. If the mkt blew up because of inflation then your argument would make sense. That's not what happened.
        legolas2412 7y ago
        Well if the quantative easing was phased out and interest rates started increasing in 2011, the stock market wouldn't be at all times high, billionaires wouldn't be so rich, but the economy would be better off.
        dcftoapv 7y ago
        You're just making things up. We couldn't have increased interest rates if we wanted to because Europe had to hold their rates low to deal with their debt crisis. If we moved ours out of step then it would have caused appreciation in the dollar and likely would have damaged US manufacturing. The US lower middle class likely would have been hurt if we did what you just suggested. Yes, inequality is a massive economic problem. Yes, we need to find a way to fix it. Spouting poorly formed conspiracy theories about financial markets is not the way to do it. We weren't holding rates low to inflate equity markets. The fed doesn't care about equity markets more than any other economic gauge. We were holding rates low because we were trying to minimize unemployment and there were no signs of inflation. When we started getting nervous about inflation, we started increasing rates, and selling off the balance sheet. That didn't go terribly well which is we stopped. The fed is a completely apolitical institution that works very hard to monitor and assist the economy. They are academics, not billionaires. Their sole purpose is to make sure that you have a job and don't have to worry about the price of milk increasing 200% in a week. Both of those things have been called into question this week, neither is because the fed didn't increase interest rates quickly enough. I'm not going to assume anything about your political leanings, but I do want to address this. I have heard a lot of Bernie supporters spouting the theory that you just told me. The irony of that is that he wants to put labor reps on the fed. You know what labor reps would push for? Super low interest rates to weaken the dollar and increase manufacturing activity. Their position is completely contradictory.
ta999999171 7y ago
So don't educate people, just trust the Pharisees. Got it.
- dcftoapv 7y ago
  The issue is that the vast majority of people don't want to be educated in economics. They publish the minutes of every signal one of their meetings. You are free to sit down and read absolutely everything they do and the reasoning behind it.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

cle 7y ago

Any body holding significant power is at some level accountable to the public, regardless of laws or regulations or how little the public may understand. If the Fed can’t make the case to most citizens that it should exist and retain its power, then it is doomed, and no philosophical arguments could change that.

cryptica 7y ago

The Fed should just hire all citizens in the country as employees. That would be a more efficient way to maximize employment.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

kds3 7y ago

> A big part of that is trying to avoid the 'bust' part of a boom-bust cycle. The thing is you can't avoid the bust part, you can only soften it in a way it is not harmful for (some) people.

onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
You can't avoid the bust unless you avoid the boom. But the Fed makes no effort to avoid the boom.
- dcftoapv 7y ago
  wtf are you talking about? They were raising interest rates and rolling assets off their balance sheet for the better part of 2018.
  - legolas2412 7y ago
    And they kept the interest rates zero from 2008 to 2015, and spent trillions to prop up asset prices via quantitive easing. When they pumped the price to astonishing heights till 2015, what they did in 2018 was too late.
    - dcftoapv 7y ago
      Too late for what? This was going to happen no matter what the fed did. If the mkt blew up because of inflation then your argument would make sense. That's not what happened.
      - legolas2412 7y ago
        Well if the quantative easing was phased out and interest rates started increasing in 2011, the stock market wouldn't be at all times high, billionaires wouldn't be so rich, but the economy would be better off.
        dcftoapv 7y ago
        You're just making things up. We couldn't have increased interest rates if we wanted to because Europe had to hold their rates low to deal with their debt crisis. If we moved ours out of step then it would have caused appreciation in the dollar and likely would have damaged US manufacturing. The US lower middle class likely would have been hurt if we did what you just suggested. Yes, inequality is a massive economic problem. Yes, we need to find a way to fix it. Spouting poorly formed conspiracy theories about financial markets is not the way to do it. We weren't holding rates low to inflate equity markets. The fed doesn't care about equity markets more than any other economic gauge. We were holding rates low because we were trying to minimize unemployment and there were no signs of inflation. When we started getting nervous about inflation, we started increasing rates, and selling off the balance sheet. That didn't go terribly well which is we stopped. The fed is a completely apolitical institution that works very hard to monitor and assist the economy. They are academics, not billionaires. Their sole purpose is to make sure that you have a job and don't have to worry about the price of milk increasing 200% in a week. Both of those things have been called into question this week, neither is because the fed didn't increase interest rates quickly enough. I'm not going to assume anything about your political leanings, but I do want to address this. I have heard a lot of Bernie supporters spouting the theory that you just told me. The irony of that is that he wants to put labor reps on the fed. You know what labor reps would push for? Super low interest rates to weaken the dollar and increase manufacturing activity. Their position is completely contradictory.

ta999999171 7y ago

So don't educate people, just trust the Pharisees. Got it.

dcftoapv 7y ago
The issue is that the vast majority of people don't want to be educated in economics. They publish the minutes of every signal one of their meetings. You are free to sit down and read absolutely everything they do and the reasoning behind it.