… is an attempt to appoint a crank to the Federal Reserve Board — which, thankfully, seems doomed to fail, thanks to 3 GOP senators with the guts to defy him and vote “no.”
A Vox article (here) goes into some detail about why Judy Shelton (photo; read bio here) should not be a member of the FRB, but all you really need to know about her is that (1) she’s a pliable toady, which is why Trump likes her, (2) thinks the Federal Reserve is a rogue agency, another reason Trump likes her, and (3) advocates returning the U.S. to the gold standard, which is a singularly terrible idea.
Why is it a terrible idea? Because the supply of gold is very limited and can’t be expanded very much, and if the money supply is chained to the gold supply, then the economy can’t grow faster than the gold supply, i.e. hardly at all. The gold standard is often considered a major cause of the Great Depression (e.g., read Liaquat Ahamed’s “Lords of Finance”), although that a bit of oversimplification. However, it’s a lousy idea that was controversial even in 1896 (read about that here), and is totally unfit for a 21st century information-based economy.
Shouldn’t there be at least one crank on the FRB so they actually have to like work. After all these guys generally are bankers pets and more into enabling the status quo.
The Chinese although they are communist/capitalism light really really like gold. India does as well. We could go with plutonium, but that would be rather difficult to handle at your local bank.
So instead we will get another member in the pocket of the bankers or is a former banker.