Who’s On Deck at the Fed?

You may remember that in early September I wrote about the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) – basically, the Fed officials who vote on monetary and interest rate policies, which govern a massive part of our economy. They try to guide our economy through the booms and busts of business cycles (how well you think they do that probably depends on how your portfolio looks).
These all-but unknown folks have their hands on the levers of the economy, so I took a look at the FOMC voting member backgrounds and asked: what qualifies these people to decide if savers get punished with lower interest rate payments or borrowers get access to loans with reasonable repayment terms? What qualifies these Fed officials to tinker with the value of the U. S. dollar by experimenting with unproven academic theory?
After eight years of tinkering and experimenting with tools that created asset bubble after asset bubble, these policies haven’t magically created jobs or corporate revenues. They have made it far too easy for companies to buy back their own stock, which in turn makes it look like those companies are more profitable – and all while fueling a stock market bubble for good measure.
So with a new U. S. President-elect, what will the Fed look like in the near future? Will Trump try to fire Fed Chair Yellen? Will the new appointees really make any difference at the Fed? Let’s take a look at who’s on deck…

This post was published at Examiner on December 2, 2016.