Paul Volcker Trashes Fed, Washington Plutocrats: World's In "A Hell Of A Mess In Every Direction"
While we have grown used to Alan Greenspan's flexible world views appearing regularly among US media channels, when former Fed Chair Paul Volcker speaks, it's low frequency nature tends to make on pay attention, and he is not optimistic about the state of the world… at all.
As 'Tall Paul' prepares to publish his memoir (ironically titled - given the current state of the world - "The Quest For Sound Money & Good Government"), he sat down with NYTimes' Dealbook's Andrew Ross Sorkin and was not shy about how he sees the world and where it's going:
When he looks around now, he sees "a hell of a mess in every direction," including a lack of basic respect for government institutions..
“Respect for government, respect for the Supreme Court, respect for the president, it’s all gone,” he said.
“Even respect for the Federal Reserve."
“And it’s really bad. At least the military still has all the respect. But I don’t know, how can you run a democracy when nobody believes in the leadership of the country?”
…a current Fed that seems to be following a completely arbitrary benchmark…
“I puzzle at the rationale,” he wrote.
“A 2 percent target, or limit, was not in my textbook years ago. I know of no theoretical justification.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-23/paul-volcker-trashes-fed-washington-plutocrats-worlds-hell-mess-every-direction
Finally, Volcker returned to a bigger picture concern about America:
“The central issue is we’re developing into a plutocracy,” he told me.
“We’ve got an enormous number of enormously rich people that have convinced themselves that they’re rich because they’re smart and constructive. And they don’t like government, and they don’t like to pay taxes.”
Mr. Volcker is no great fan of the president, but he acknowledged that Mr. Trump had cannily recognized the economic worries of blue-collar workers. Mr. Trump “seized upon some issues that the elite had ignored,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any question about that, in kind of an erratic way, but there it is.”