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Statement from Jerome Powell

federalreserve.gov

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Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#501

Post by nullocator »

kettlecorn wrote: post #197
jordanscales wrote: post #119

Threats like the ones Powell's receiving would be the end of any other presidency. Why tech elites continue to align themselves with this clownshow will be a source of incredible shame that I'll hold onto forever.

I think a lot of largest tech companies feel that they'll face retribution from the current administration for not being supportive enough but would not from future admins. For many of the smaller players I think there's unfortunately a lot of people who realized there's significant money to be made in grifting. Many of the largest crypto proponents have pivoted into endeavors, whether crypto or otherwise, that profi…

I would be heavily predisposed to vote for any candidate who had a public goal of breaking up the big tech companies and taxing their CEOs into oblivion. I want this primarily because of the immediate about-face they all had when Trump 2.0 was elected and them all contributing to and standing behind him during his inauguration. Had they not, mercifully, all shown themselves as the snakes that they are I probably would have mostly continued to considere them a-political-ish and not been strongly opinionated.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#502

Post by refurb »

kentm wrote: post #483
refurb wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This administration has not been operating the DoJ in good faith. One only has to look at the buffoonish attempts to push through charges on Comey, James and other political opponents to see that. Treating the investigation in good faith is not being neutral or unbiased. Expecting more of the same is.

> One only has to look at the buffoonish attempts to push through charges on Comey, James and other political opponents to see that.

How so? Charges were dismissed on a technicality of on the US prosecutor who brought them, not based on evidence presented.

Have you seen all the evidence? You seem very confident that no crime has been committed.

I mean we've seen the declassified Obama memo on sicking the CIA on Trump. Seems like some smoke there, why not find out if there is a fire?

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#503

Post by mrtksn »

sapphicsnail wrote: post #499
mrtksn wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there’s, it’s just that anti-Trump people don’t care as much and are not as brave as the pro-Trump people. MAGA people stormed the capitol, anti-Trump people just write well thought concerns on the internet. MAGA people for years endured deplatforming and being outcasts but developed methods to deal with it, the anti-Trump people are scared to lose what they have and are too concerned about their difference…

People are out there protesting right now even though ICE and the police have a history of shooting unarmed protestors. Leftists protestors are and always have been more harshly treated by this government than the other side.

> People are out there protesting right now even though ICE and the police have a history of shooting unarmed protestors

I never understand what's the point of those protests. They should be taking over power by force or GTFO. Notice that successful revolutions storm the HQ, destroy some building of iconic significance or kill/capture the leader, not just enduring the atrocities of the foot-soldiers of the people who they are against.

The peaceful protest thing works when the people in the HQ care about what you think about them, which means it only works if those protesting are their people and not the opposition.

The lefties should start taking notes on what works and what the far right did to gain so much power and start stealing their methods. Display of dissatisfaction isn't going to work, if anything that dissatisfaction is satisfaction to the right wingers. They feel giddy when see the people they hate protesting, their only complain can be that the protests are not big enough.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#504

Post by nullocator »

Kephael wrote: post #487
dpc_01234 wrote: post #481

The US government entered a debt spiral a while ago ( https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A091RC1Q027SBEA ), and needs lower interest rates to service its tremendous debt while trying to inflate it away by printing money. That's all it comes down to. For decades fiscal conservatives were warning about it and were laughed at. Now that we're are the end game the inevitable shitshow will become apparent. You can hate Tru…

Exactly, interest rates must come down due to the government debt burden. This debt burden creates a strong incentive to force rates to zero, but we have to pretend the Federal Reserve is independent. Separately, I think Jerome Powell is one of the worst Fed chairs as he is most (but not exclusively) responsible for what happened to the housing market by creating a lock-in effect and focusing on their CPI basket.

Or you know we could like tax wealthy people and companies...

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#505

Post by _DeadFred_ »

hackingonempty wrote: post #436
acdha wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly: there was a brief moment when it looked like Republicans were willing to hold him accountable after the January 6th insurrection but that faltered and they circled ranks, especially when Roberts signaled that Trump had the support of the Supreme Court to the extent that they were willing to concoct a new constitutional doctrine to shield him. A lot of people were hoping he’d just go away without them having…

What makes you think he is not going to pardon every single person in his administration, every single loyal Republican?

ex post facto can be ignored, and a new law of the land passed voiding pardons during 47s term. Because repealing pardons isn't weaponizing the person pardoned's behavior after the fact, it's against Presidential authority, so isn't ex post facto when it comes to the person who's behavior was legally determined to be criminal. Voiding a commutation for cause would be tougher and potential ex post facto, but not a pardon. We can void those without violating our ex post facto standards.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#506

Post by Tanoc »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #480
Tanoc wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to harm on this scale, always expect the worst, because the harm will be generational. More importantly, Trump doesn't give a flying fuck about anything outside of the executive branch and below the federal level, because the federal level executive has control of the instruments of war. And he has already proven that nobody manning those instruments of war will disobey him. The Marines got recalled, bu…

As I always tell people, if you're right there's no point in arguing about it, so the only thing I would say is that you owe it to yourself to check your predictions. Set a reminder for January 25 to confirm whether Trump has ordered the military and security agencies to invade any state capitols. I did this a few times last year, and immigration policy is really the only topic where the "expect the worst" heuristic…

My personal belief is that he will try it and it will fail, but that will of course lead to the Coast Guard and the National Guard being rescinded from the DHS and governor's control by decree and being placed under the Navy and the Army respectively. Currently this power exists in theory, but it's never truly been implemented, even during World War II. This is something that Hegseth publicly considered when West Virginia's state Congress decided that the extended deployment of the state's National Guard troops to Washington D.C. was not within presidential power and ordered them back.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#509

Post by mindslight »

hash872 wrote: post #165

From an institutional engineering POV (warning- I am a grouchy old former political scientist), it would be interesting to come up with institutional solutions for some of the problems America is facing right now. Specifically I think I'd remove the Attorney General role from the President's authority and give it to Senate, to nominate & confirm exclusively. Let's say 51 votes to confirm and 55 votes to impeach. Even…

It's not like campaigning and running elections are terribly hard these days. The AG (and other heads of independent executive departments) should be each their own races voted on by the public. (Yes, this obviously requires repudiating this new innovative brain damage called sparkling autocracy theory^W^W^W unitary executive theory.)

We also need Ranked Pairs voting so we end this two party duopoly bullshit. Primaries can remain, but voters should be able to vote in all parties' primaries (rather than having to pick just one).

We also need some sort of recall mechanism, either periodic option to vote no confidence (twice a year when elections/primaries are already held?), or something triggered when signatures/polling get high enough.

Since I'm making my Christmas list, we also need to drastically neuter sovereign and qualified immunity - remove their applicability for any action not explicitly authorized by the legislature (and Constitution). No more general "agents of the government" who unilaterally act with impunity, with only narrow legal ways of recovering damages.

But part of the difficulty that has precipitated our current situation is the absolute gridlock in Congress for the past twenty+ years. That's what pushed more and more power into the executive and executive agencies. I don't know if Ranked Pairs would be enough to fix that with fresh blood, or we need more direct democracy (voters can override their sen/rep vote on a bill?), or what. Maybe triple the number of sen/reps from each district so that voters won't feel they're losing their experienced politicians if they vote out the worst of the three.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#510

Post by zarzavat »

mikeyouse wrote: post #267
CodingJeebus wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He knew how much power he had back then. The difference was that the government bureaucracy worked hard to counter his agenda throughout his term. It’s why The Heritage Foundation came up with Project 2025: an organizated and cohesive plan to dismantle the bureaucracy and consolidate power. And it is working.

The first term laid a lot of the groundwork for this term as well - had he not appointed three SC Justices, things would look very different. This court has said basically that all executive actions including pretextual investigations via the DOJ are legal and that there is no such thing as agency independence, even when written into the laws that created the agencies.

Yes, too much emphasis is put on Trump. He's just the President. This crisis has been 80 years in the making.

It's the Supreme Court that has expanded the powers of the President, and previously of the Federal government, far beyond what was ever intended.

By allowing the federal government to dominate the states, the Supreme Court created a position of unrivalled power.

Trump may be an evil narcissist by the standards of normal people, but there's plenty of those sorts of people in politics. That's why you have a constitution.

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