[throwaway5947]

It’s a cynical take, but I always thought the real reason for central bank independence is so the finance sector can exercise more political leverage and be safer during busts, for politicians it was mostly a technocratic headache they happily remissed. People always talk about independence as some high minded ideal but I don’t see the benefit in practice.

[lazide]

You saw that Trump was explicitly trying to print cash like crazy, right?

Even without the ability to directly fire folks and nominal ‘independence’ that definitely delayed rate hikes and made inflation much worse.

If politicians had direct control, the whole countries economy would be whipsawed by whatever directly benefited the current office holder.

As-is, it’s indirectly the case, hah.

[corbulo]

Not sure which is better. Ownership of regional feds is private.

It's not like democracies take a long view of things very frequently, but neither does the fed, at least not directly (maybe through said regional ownership).

[hindsightbias]

What McCulley said in 2017:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnYZwxzxd9Y

[landemva]

While Trump advocated for spending, the spending bills come from House of Representatives. Trump helped reduce expenditures by starting the withdraw process from two-decade Afghanistan quagmire. The Fed helps the government with deficit spending.