After an embarrassing establishment CNN propaganda piece claiming that Fed low interest rate policy could never be political, up to the plate steps Patrick Chovanec, chief strategist at Silvercrest Asset Management, an Adjunct Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University and most notably a policy aide to Republican strategist and Trump-hater William Kristol at Project for the Republican Future.
Chovanec writes in Foreign Policy, published by The FP Group,a division of Graham Holdings Company (formerly The Washington Post Company):
[T]he Fed is keeping interest rates low because the U.S. economy — faced with a weak global economy — isn’t as strong as we might expect or desire and is walking on fragile ground.Which he uses as a justification to claim that the Fed is not political.
But the Fed in its most recent statement says nothing close to what Chovanec is claiming is the reason the Fed hasn't hike rates. From the FOMC statement:
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in July indicates that the labor market has continued to strengthen and growth of economic activity has picked up from the modest pace seen in the first half of this year. Although the unemployment rate is little changed in recent months, job gains have been solid, on average...In public statements, Fed vice-chairman Stanley Fischer and other Fed members have stated that they believe the U.S. economy is at or near full employment.
And there is nowhere near the concern by the Fed about weak global economies that Chovanec claims in his piece.
All and all, the piece is pure propaganda from an establishment operative and nothing more.
-RW
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