Challenging Secretary Bessent on the Fed’s Failures

Treasury Secretary Bessent recently expressed displeasure with the Fed, implying that he’s interested in investigating whether or not the Fed is successful in promoting price stability. If Bessent digs deep enough, he’ll realize that the Fed has been both utterly unsuccessful and damaging to the economy.

The following article was originally published by the Mises Institute. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Peter Schiff or SchiffGold.

I read with great interest your July 21 comment at the Federal Reserve Capital Conference that: “What we need to do is examine the entire Federal Reserve institution and whether they have been successful. . . . All of these Ph.D.s over there, I don’t know what they do. . . . This is like Universal Basic Income for academic economists.”

Having been an academic Ph.D. economist for forty-one years I believe I can offer a little insight into whether the Fed has been successful (it unequivocally has not), as well as what “All of these Ph.D.’s over there” do. There is a mountain of academic research that shows that the Fed has failed on all counts. It has not only failed, but has made the economy far more unstable and with more price inflation than there was before the Fed existed, for one thing.