The Senate is still broken

As evidence, one lousy troglodyte who hasn’t got enough sense to come out of the rain has just single-handedly deprived the Federal Reserve Board of the services of a Nobel Laureate in Economics.

Senator Shelby says that Mr. Diamond has no background in monetary policy, that Mr. Diamond is a labor markets expert. It’s apparently escaped Senator Shelby’s notice that we have 9.1% unemployment in this country. Understanding whether we have a structural unemployment problem or whether it can be explained solely by the business cycle (demand for products is too low) might be useful in formulating Fed policy.

Mr. Diamond:

. . . we should all worry about how distorted the confirmation process has become, and how little understanding of monetary policy there is among some of those responsible for its Congressional oversight. We need to preserve the independence of the Fed from efforts to politicize monetary policy and to limit the Fed’s ability to regulate financial firms.

Senator Shelby, I think he’s telling you you’re talking through your hat.

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