(Oct. 11) MOBILE, Ala. — The Federal Reserve could become a threat both to liberty and to the economy it is supposed to safeguard.
The nation’s central banking system is wading into woke, racial politics and an environmental agenda having nothing to do with its legal mandate, while the political Left aims to give the Fed far more power. The Fed’s mission creep, or, more accurately, a mission gallop, is profoundly dangerous.
For one of the increasingly numerous examples of the Fed pushing beyond its legal mandate, consider an Oct. 20 forum planned by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis called “Racism and the Economy : Focus on the Wealth Divide.” It’s the ninth in a series of race-obsessed forums on issues ranging from healthcare to housing to criminal justice. (Since when was criminal justice an issue for central bankers?) This particular event “focuses on how racialized barriers to wealth accumulation deny families and communities long-term economic mobility and financial resiliency,” and “a panel of practitioners, scholars, and community leaders will propose and discuss bold strategies to finally reverse these trends.”
To be clear, discussions like these can be quite worthwhile and productive. (I am a panelist for just such an event down here in Alabama the day before the Minneapolis Federal Reserve event.) All of us should want to ensure that the economy encourages upward economic mobility and that race not be a deterrent.
Still, such discussions are the province of academic, civic organizations, or elected political leaders. They are far from the purview of central bankers acting with vast governmental authority but almost no public accountability. These forays into non-banking policy and political issues are majorly misguided for two reasons. They put the economy at risk by distracting from the Fed’s core missions, and they could allow the Fed to accumulate unwonted power without (small-‘r’) republican guardrails…. [The full column is at this link.]
