The mask is off at the Federal Reserve

America's central bank cannot help but have a political function. It's time to face that fact.

The Federal Reserve building.
(Image credit: Illustrated | jjgervasi/iStock, Sergey Tinyakov/iStock, Wiyada Arunwaikit/iStock)

Bill Dudley is the former president of the New York Fed and former chief U.S. economist of Goldman Sachs. He got in some hot water Tuesday over a Bloomberg column suggesting that the Fed should maybe deliberately tank the economy to harm President Trump politically. "There’s even an argument that the election itself falls within the Fed’s purview," he wrote. "After all, Trump’s reelection arguably presents a threat to the U.S. and global economy, to the Fed’s independence and its ability to achieve its employment and inflation objectives."

It's a perfect demonstration of what is already obvious: America's central bank, the Federal Reserve, is a highly political institution — its heavily rich-friendly politics are just usually obscured behind a technocratic facade. Recognizing this fact will be key if we want a prosperous future.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.