Connect with us

Top Stories

Lisa Cook standing up for the Federal Reserve is a ploy to turn a blind eye from her mortgage scandal

Published

on


Fed Governor Lisa Cook is standing up to Donald Trump, suing to keep her job because she says the president is trumping up a scandal and she’s fighting for Fed independence.

Trump has called for Cook’s head for allegedly committing mortgage fraud by signing documents that she had two primary residences.

We should let the courts decide that one.

But Cook’s notion that she’s standing up for the sanctity of the Fed should be taken with a grain of salt.

The Fed has long been distracted by side hustles to its “dual mandate” of price stability within the context of maximum employment. It’s far from an apolitical agency.

Even more, Cook’s own appointment by Joe Biden in 2022 is an example of how politics, particularly of the left-wing variety, has been infused into the Fed’s plumbing.

In getting rid of Cook, you can make the case that Trump — in his own messy way — is righting the ship.

The markets may be signaling this — despite media talking heads and those of some Fed watchers exploding over Trump’s latest alleged apostasy.

The establishment commentariat is arguing that not being able to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell or even Cook except for some on-the-job crime, aka cause — is why people keep buying our debt.

The nation’s central bank created by Congress to manage the money supply doesn’t report to the president.

It’s not subject to his political whims to juice economic growth at the expense of “King Dollar.”

OK, all good points.

But stocks and bond yields have barely budged.

The stated reasons in a recent Wall Street Journal piece: Traders believe Trump will appoint seasoned pros to fill the jobs of both Cook and his main Fed nemesis, Powell.

Big investors unfazed

Yes, but my sources provide a more prescient analysis of the market’s insouciance: Trump is merely putting his MAGA stamp on the independence charade.

Many big investors are unfazed by Trump’s power grab because for years the Fed has been straying from its mandate — constantly intervening in the economy by playing with the money supply when it isn’t needed and most recently becoming woke.

Lisa Cook’s nomination in 2022, subsequent confirmation by the then Democrat-controlled and woke-obsessed Senate is part of the proof.

Don’t believe me?

Here’s what Larry Summers, Bill Clinton’s former treasury secretary, former Harvard president and one of the most important economic minds on monetary policy said in 2021 about the Fed’s mission-creep:

“We have a generation of central bankers who are defining themselves by their ‘wokeness.’ They’re defining themselves by how socially concerned they are. They’re defining themselves how concerned they are about the environment . . . business ethics.”

In 2022, the Fed developed a “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategic Plan” to reflect the Federal Reserve Board’s “strategic initiative on diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is a shared responsibility of all Board employees.”

Now tell me exactly how DEI, which the Supreme Court says is discriminatory and common sense tells you erodes the nation’s meritocracy, helps the Fed figure out if it’s stoking inflation as it did just a few years ago during Joe Biden’s reign of error?

Or maybe I should be directing that question to Lisa Cook.

Her lawyer argued Friday before a federal judge that her firing by Trump is “unprecedented and illegal” in that it exceeds the president’s authority over an independent, nonpolitical agency.

Go back a few years to her messy confirmation battle and you will see how Cook is anything but apolitical.

Yes, she has a Ph.D. in econ, from Berkeley no less, and was a longtime academic.

She is the first African-American woman to serve as a Fed governor, which should be celebrated.

But during the hearings we discovered that her areas of interest in economics, based on her publishing record, are dominated by stuff like how lynchings hindered the economic growth of black Americans.

There is a place for such research at the university — though you gotta ask yourself why we need an economist to explain something so fundamentally obvious.

Look into Cook’s résumé and you see this is an economist who seems more obsessed with being a social-justice warrior than weighing the vicissitudes of M2 and how it impacts price stability.

Presumed innocent

Again, I’m giving Cook the presumption of innocence on the mortgage inquiry.

For the record, I hate the lack of due process she received.

Instead of a simple referral to the DOJ to determine probable cause — cause is what Trump needs to boot her from the post — Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has been announcing criminal referrals on the mortgage charges via social media.

Music to the ears of his social-media-obsessed boss, who announced Cook’s firing on Truth Social.

To date, Cool hasn’t denied the central charges that she purposely stated two primary residences to get a lower mortgage rate.

(Her lawyer has suggested she possibly erred.)

I also wonder if she would ­accord the same due process to someone who encroached on her woke-obsessed boundaries.

Good evidence says probably not.

Consider what she did in 2020, during the insane Summer of Love when Black Lives Matter riots spread across the country, demanding that the police be defunded.

A fellow academic at the University of Chicago, Harald Uhlig, also the editor at the influential Journal of Political Economy, criticized BLM and defunding.

She joined the online assault to get him fired.

(He was placed on leave by the publication and reinstated.)

Her rationale: “Free speech should have its limits,” adding that it shouldn’t be used to “spread ­hatred and violate the dignity of other people.”

Now do you really want someone like that helping run the ­nation’s central bank?

Maybe that’s why the markets don’t care about Trump’s power play.



Source link

Top Stories

Source – Cowboys, DaRon Bland reach 4-year, $92M extension

Published

on


The Dallas Cowboys and cornerback DaRon Bland have agreed to a four-year extension worth $92 million, a source told ESPN.

The Cowboys were in discussions with Bland before the Micah Parsons trade, the source told ESPN.

Bland, 26, was named a first-team All-Pro in 2023 when he led the NFL with nine interceptions and set an NFL record for most returns for a touchdown in a season with five.

He has 14 interceptions in three seasons with the Cowboys since they selected him in the fifth round of the 2022 draft.

He is the second member of the Cowboys’ 2022 draft class to receive an extension this year, joining tight end Jake Ferguson, who signed a four-year, $52 million deal in July.



Source link

Continue Reading

Top Stories

Federal judge blocks US from deporting unaccompanied children to Guatemala | US immigration

Published

on


A federal judge on Sunday issued a restraining order blocking the Trump administration from deporting 10 unaccompanied Guatemalan children back to their home country after lawyers said the removals would violate US laws.

The Washington DC-based district judge Sparkle Sooknanan ordered the administration to refrain from deporting the children for 14 days and called for a hearing at 12.30pm. The National Immigration Law Center, a pro-immigration advocacy group, brought the challenge on behalf of the children, who are ages 10-17.

Donald Trump’s administration struck an agreement with Guatemala that would allow the removal of unaccompanied children back to the country and planned to start deportations this weekend, one current and two former US officials told Reuters. The plans were first reported by CNN on Friday.

Trump, a Republican, kicked off a wide-ranging immigration crackdown after returning to the White House in January.

Children who arrive at US borders without a parent or guardian are classified as unaccompanied and sent to federal government-run shelters until they can be placed with a family member or foster home, a process outlined in federal law.

Melissa Johnston, director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s program for unaccompanied children, sent an email to staff on Thursday calling for a halt to the release of all Guatemalan children except for those sponsored by parents or legal guardians in the US, according to a copy reviewed by Reuters and one of the former officials.

In a legal complaint filed on Sunday, the National Immigration Law Center and Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights said the deportations would be a “clear violation of the unambiguous protections that Congress has provided them as vulnerable children”.

“Defendants are imminently planning to illegally transfer Plaintiffs to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody to put them on flights to Guatemala, where they may face abuse, neglect, persecution, or even torture, against their best interests,” the complaint read.

The US Department of Homeland Security, Ice’s parent agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Guatemala’s foreign ministry declined to comment.

Sooknanan was appointed by President Joe Biden, a Democrat.



Source link

Continue Reading

Top Stories

‘Love Island’s Taylor Williams Injured After Getting Thrown Off Horse

Published

on


‘love island usa’s taylor williams
cowboy gets tossed
… sends thumbs up from hospital

Published




Source link

Continue Reading

Trending