US President Donald Trump on Friday said that he would nominate Stephen Moore, an economic analyst and frequent critic of the Federal Reserve, to fill a vacancy on the Fed’s seven-member board.
Moore, a well-known and often polarizing figure in Washington political circles, served as an adviser to Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. In that role, he helped draft Trump’s tax cut plan.
Trump has been harshly critical of the Fed’s rate increases even after the central bank announced this week that it foresees no hikes this year. Moore, formerly chief economist for the conservative Heritage Foundation, has also been critical of the policies of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.
A fervent advocate of tax cuts, Moore is close to Larry Kudlow, head of the White House National Economic Council. The two collaborated in shaping the tax overhaul that Trump signed into law at the end of 2017.
Trump in his first two years in office has been able to reshape the central bank. He nominated four of the five current members. And he tapped Powell, who had been chosen for the Fed board by former president Barack Obama, to succeed Janet Yellen as chairman. If confirmed by the US Senate, Moore would fill one of two vacancies on the board.
Given his sharply partisan reputation, Moore could spark opposition among Democrats in the Senate, but Trump can score points with his core supporters — and with the majority Republicans in the Senate — by rejecting any assertions that Moore is too ideological for a Fed role that would make him a watchdog over the economy.
The selection of Moore marks a deviation from Trump’s previous selections for the board toward a visible public figure. In a March editorial in the Wall Street Journal, Moore estimated that Fed rate policies had reduced inflation-adjusted economic growth by as much as 1.5 percentage points in the past six months.
Moore proposed that the Fed set short-term rates with an eye toward stabilizing commodity prices, rather than solely on overall inflation.
This approach would have prevented the Fed from raising rates as much as it has, Moore has said.
This approach, if adopted, would help accelerate economic growth above 3 percent, compared with the longer-run average of 1.9 percent that Fed officials have forecast, he said.
With Trump as president, Moore became a sharp critic of Fed policies to shrink its balance sheet and return rates to what the central bank sees as a neutral level — neither stimulating nor hindering growth.
He said that Trump might consider trying to fire Powell for the rate hikes under his watch.
“What the law says, I believe, [Trump] can replace the Federal Reserve Chairman for cause,” Moore said during a radio interview in December last year. “And, you know, I would say, well, the cause is that he’s wrecking our economy.”
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure
RSS