Fed Hikes Interest Rate. Warsh Compared to Volcker. Will There Be a Minnesota Midterm Miracle? Rove: Why I’m Voting for a Texas Democrat. Risk-Averse Society. Macklemore. And More
After much perfervid speculation, they did it. In a unanimous vote, the Federal Reserve hiked the interest rate for the first time in three years. According to a Wall Street Journal editorial, this action marks new Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh as “an inflation hawk”:
Has Elizabeth Warren sent her apology yet? We mean the letter to Kevin Warsh saying she was wrong to say the new Federal Reserve Chairman wouldn’t be independent. After Wednesday’s decision by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) to raise interest rates a quarter point, she isn’t the only one who should be offering mea culpas.
The herd of independent minds in the Fed press corps spent the summer hyping a supposed staring contest between Mr. Warsh and President Trump, with the Fed’s credibility as the stakes. Mr. Trump famously prefers lower rates, as does any elected politician if we’re honest. The FOMC’s decisions to stand pat at Mr. Warsh’s first two meetings as its leader became supposed evidence that Fed credibility was in doubt.
It was a silly argument, and it obscured much more consequential developments at the Fed. Mr. Warsh is the most hawkish chairman since Paul Volcker, with a long record in our pages and elsewhere of explaining his views. … No doubt Wall Street and the press will have trouble dropping their speculation about Mr. Warsh’s relationship with Mr. Trump.
For the time being, President Trump, who mercilessly badgered former Fed Chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates, has contented himself with blaming a “hostile board” for the hikes. Larry Kudlow stressed that the hikes come amid signs of economic growth:
So let me repeat an old supply-side saw, growth is not inflationary. Especially this kind of business-led growth. Manufacturing profits are soaring. Of course, profits are the mothers’ milk of stocks and the lifeblood of the economy. And that can’t possibly be inflationary.
What does the interest rate hike mean for us? Among other things, it will affect car loans, credit cards, and mortgages.
Why did it take the strenuous efforts of Senator Chuck Grassley, 93, to finally pry open FBI files on the nearly successful assassination attempt on President Trump in Butler, Pa.? Miranda Devine addresses the secrecy of the Biden FBI, highlighting the news that an anonymous donor paid for gunman Thomas Crooks’ suspiciously quick cremation.
Iran Update. “Iran’s Attempts to Get Around the Hormuz Blockade Are Hitting a Wall.” Seems that “while Saudi Arabia and others find workarounds, bottlenecks are threatening Iran’s economy.”
Polls. Despite their faults, we’re addicted. Doug Schoen and Carly Cooperman write that Dems have an edge for the midterms but shouldn’t uncork the champers yet. “Preference Cascade in Minnesota” is how Powerline describes a stunning new poll:
The race for governor shows the biggest shift. In a classic turnout suppression poll, last month KSTP showed now U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar ahead of state Speaker of the House Lisa Demuth 52-36. The latest numbers have Klobuchar ahead 47-40, a nine-point shift in just four weeks.
…
The race for the open U.S. Senate seat, sitting Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D) and Michelle Tafoya (R) are tied 42-42, a five-point shift in favor of Tafoya.
“Too Good to Check: A Virtual Dead Heat in Minnesota?” is Ed Morrissey’s Hot Air take on the poll. Uh-oh: Karl Rove explains why he is voting for a Democrat in Texas in the midterms. Can you guess who? It’s NOT the guy whose prophetic Lesbian minister predicts he’ll abandon his recent rightward shift (and return to tasty tofu?) the second it’s safe. More on Mail-in Ballots: “Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s “hero” Supreme Court justice, isn’t closing the door on the United States Postal Service (USPS) enacting Trump’s ballot-mail rules in the future, although he agreed with the majority that implementing them ahead of the 2026 midterm elections is too soon.”
Closing the Door on Risk. “The Zero-Risk Society Has Arrived,” writes the Wall Street Journal’s Barton Swaim:
America’s global economic dominance, achieved in the 1950s and enduring still, is largely thanks to the young country’s risk-welcoming ethos. The few provisions that shielded economic actors from ruin in the 19th century—bankruptcy protections, limited-liability laws—didn’t deter risk-taking but encouraged it.
Then came the New Deal’s dramatic expansion of the welfare state. …
And bear in mind, [author of a new study on risk Allison] Schrager says, the reason millennials carry that debt in the first place: because politicians starting in the ’80s presented college as a risk-free road to financial security. Federal and state governments made loans easy, borrowers felt less price sensitivity and colleges responded rationally by bumping up tuition. “When college is touted as a ticket to a certain lifestyle,” she writes, “it seems smart to agree to almost any price tag and any amount of debt.”
An idyllic English village, Piddington, has just taken the risk of voting to secede from the UK. It’s a symbolic vote, but it indicates that England’s middle classes are awakening to the “lunacy of illegal immigration”:
So long as our leaders believe that their obligations to men who have broken into the country trump the democratic wishes and safety of citizens, the asylum crisis will continue. But Piddington’s declaration of independence remains a stunning rebuke to a government whose latest genius solution is to spread the problem out a little more evenly.
The British people’s revolt against open-borders lunacy is growing. The aggy working classes led the way, and the irked middle classes might finally be catching up. The Waitrose mums. The Stone Island dads. The Pink Ladies in Epping. The Ladies of Piddington. If they ever got themselves together, they might just save Britain.
“Macklemore Is No Free-Speech Martyr” is the headline of Karol Markowicz’s excellent Free Expression piece on the controversy surrounding Macklemore’s unhinged rant that resulted in his being dropped from an Ed Sheeran tour. Since Karol does a great job of making the point, I’ll just quote her description of the original incident for those who missed it:
Wearing a keffiyeh, a scarf associated with the Palestinian cause, Macklemore chanted to free Palestine and thanked a bunch of anti-Israel groups before adding: “So I say free Palestine, I say free Lebanon, I say free Cuba, I say free Congo, free Sudan, I say free all people in America living in fear of this terrorist organization, ICE. None of us will be free until we are all free.”
Macklemore made sure to note he had no problems with Jews as people. But Jews could be forgiven for doubting that. In 2014 Macklemore dressed up in a costume that seemed an obvious Jewish caricature, complete with a prosthetic nose. He explained his offense hadn’t been intentional. But no real apology was forthcoming.
Bethany Mandel also has a good piece (“Nobody Owes Macklemore a Stadium“) in the Examiner. Meanwhile, stadium owner Robert Kraft outwitted Macklemore.
“Full Hearts, Closed Minds,” by Free Expression columnist Matthew Hennessey, also addresses the Macklemore fracas and the lack of political diversity among artists (and artistes). Hennessey has some interesting observations on the Kennedy Center and the response of the “artistic community” to Trump’s name on the building. The Kennedy Center could be “ripped down” imminently, President Trump says, because he refuses to rescue it financially unless he gets credit. It does seem rather a shame, despite the KC’s expensive tickets and ugly Edward Durrell Stone building.
What? What? What book did John Quincy Adams believe all Americans should read to be good citizens? What is the one thing you should never do when the scammers come for your money?
