Remember how the Fed has been vilified over the years, by certain factions?

Goofy as you get behind your wheelbarrow you will be shot by our military. Your worries will be over.

I remember well the inflation of the 1970’s. The biggest reason for it was the sudden oil shock of the OPEC embargo, tripling prices of crude within weeks. A second cause was Nixon’s pressure on Arthur Burns to keep easy money flowing, and Burns’ grudging acceptance, and if there is to be a third cause it would be the “both guns and butter” policies of the Johnson administration. Those three came together in causing the greatest wealth destroying inflation in several generations. It’s worth noting that inflation was already accelerating prior to the OPEC move, but Nixon leaned on Burns to ignore it and keep the spigot open.

A President has an incentive to make credit and monetary policies hotter, the Fed has a mandate not to, except in exigent circumstances (2008, 1929). This is a simply terrible idea. Full stop.

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Burns had a bigger problem. Bank savings account interest rates were set by law. Nixon did not push Congress to change the laws around S&Ls.

OPEC never embargoed oil. It was the ARABS!

Arab oil embargo, temporary cessation of oil shipments from the Middle East to the United States, the Netherlands, Portugal, Rhodesia, and South Africa, imposed by oil-producing Arab countries in October 1973 in retaliation for support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War; the embargo on the United States was lifted in March 1974, though the embargo on the other countries remained in place for some time afterward. The Arab oil embargo was the first oil crisis, an oil-supply disruption leading to major price increases and a worldwide energy crisis.

The Captain

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Yes, it OAPEC v. OPEC…

…although both were/are cartels whose idea is to create price and production controls.

Pete