Power & Market

The Racist Red Herring

Two new faces were recently sworn into the Fed’s inner circle, Dr. Lisa Cook and Dr. Philip N. Jefferson, whom I wrote about in January when Biden nominated them.

Both candidates are PhD holders with impressive academic backgrounds and work experience; both are African-Americans. As a black man, it inspires me to see others in the community get ahead. However, once this warm and fuzzy feeling fades, I must remember that race can be used as a distraction method, keeping the public away from more pressing economic issues. The New York Times proudly demonstrates:

Lawmakers and think tanks have for years pushed the Fed to increase diversity within its ranks, arguing that having a set of economists and researchers at the central bank who more closely reflect the public — the people the Fed ultimately serves — would lead to a wider range of viewpoints around the policy table and more rounded economic discussions.

Yet, the Fed doesn’t serve the public. Suppressing rates, inflating asset bubbles, causing the boom-and-bust cycle, and debasing the US dollar is not in the public’s interest. Rather than reporting on critical issues, we are fed a diversion to keep us divided and unaware of the Fed’s destructive economic policies.

There is an on-going narrative imploring us to focus on the Fed, how progressive they are for hiring non-white males. Yet no one explains how this supposedly benefits the disenfranchised.

To say that big banks, governments and the wealthiest members of society are served by the Federal Reserve would be more accurate than what the New York Times offers.

The article then accidently agrees with the position I just shared, they explain it as follows:

The Fed sets the nation’s monetary policy, raising or lowering the cost of borrowing money in order to slow down or speed up the economy. Its actions help to determine how strong the labor market is in any given moment, help to control inflation, and can influence financial stability.

Setting a national monetary policy is an impossible task, relying on both the impossibility of knowledge and the problem of economic calculation under socialism. Tinkering with interest rates distorts time preferences giving false market signals to both consumers and entrepreneurs. Rate suppression requires an inordinate amount of money (i.e., trillions of dollars) to be digitally created. These trillions of new dollars are used to purchase US Treasuries and Mortgage-Backed Securities, pushing up asset prices, like stocks and real estate, as well as household items. The list of issues is vast and has everything to do with economic schools of thought, little to nothing to do with race. Of course, this is illusory wealth and only those well connected to the new money reap the benefits.

Between the war on drugs, terror, poverty, homelessness, and the upcoming war on one’s right to bear arms, America already has many problems with huge racial undertones. But at the Federal Reserve, the problem is a lack of intellectual diversity, not physical diversity.

The Federal Reserve may have blacks and women amongst their highest ranks, and proudly display their diverse collection in front of the nation to prove just how progressive they’ve become. Yet it says absolutely nothing about monetary policy. The Fed will never give a seat to anyone who has a firm understanding of liberty, freedom or the free market. Don’t be fooled by their insulting diversions.

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