At first glance, this year’s Jackson Hole conference proceeded a lot like in years past. Attendees of the storied economics conference, who mostly hail from central banks around the world, engaged in a healthy debate about the outlook for monetary policy, the latest developments in inflation and structural shifts across the labor market.
But increasingly hostile attacks from the White House against the Federal Reserve, including President’s Trump’s threat to fire a sitting governor if she did not resign, created an inescapable distraction. As a result, officials at the central bank were left with little choice but to profess an unwavering focus on just doing their jobs.
“It is more than a full-time job to be focusing on the data and the analytics,” said Susan Collins, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, in an interview on the sidelines of the conference. “There is a huge amount to do.”
The central bank’s congressional mandate is to set interest rates with an aim of keeping inflation low and stable and fostering a healthy labor market. It strives to make its decisions free of political influence to ensure that the best economic outcome is reached rather than one that will most directly benefit the person in the Oval Office.
Mr. Trump does not agree with that approach and has spent the past seven months trying to chip away at the Fed’s independence in an attempt to get the rock-bottom interest rates he desires.
Most of his fury has centered on Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, who he has called on to resign and has considered firing. But in a sign of the president’s commitment to systematically disrupt the institution, Mr. Trump has turned his attention to other members of the Board of Governors, to pressure them to leave so he can install loyalists who will acquiesce to his demands.
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