A brief (?) tweet storm on Trump and the Fed. The tricky thing here is to keep two concepts separate. You can believe that the Fed is raising rates too quickly, as I do, and also believe that weighing in the way Trump has is very, very bad 1/
Now, the Fed isn't "loco": it's raising rates more or less in line with what it should do if it wants to keep inflation at around 2%. The problem is that the 2% target is almost surely too low: the Fed should actually let inflation rise above that level 2/
2% was supposed to be high enough that the economy would hardly ever hit the zero lower bound -- but given what happened after 2008, it clearly wasn't. So the Fed should let the expansion go on 3/
But that's not where Trump is coming from; he just doesn't want the Fed raining on his parade. And letting the short-term political interests of the strongman drive monetary policy is a well-known danger -- it's what's going on in Turkey 4/
So the Fed isn't a sacred body that mustn't be criticized. Indeed, it's OK for elected officials to weigh in on monetary policy. But such criticism is only legit if it isn't nakedly driven by self-interest. And everything Trump does is naked self-interest. 5/
Monetary doves may well be right; I'm one of them. But Trump is making the best case around for Fed independence, even when the Fed may be wrong 6/
