I know, it’s becoming tiresome. But when you have a quote factory like Donald J. Trump it gets hard not to go there, especially during slow weeks when nobody else is saying things that are more stupid, crude, outrageous or all three at once. This week Trump picked Kevin Warsh to be the new Fed chair. Of his choice he said:
“Anybody that disagrees with me will never be the Fed Chairman!”
- Warsh responded by saying:
A) “It’s important for the stability of markets that the Fed act independently of outside political forces.”
B) “I believe that Chairman Powell may have been too conservative in his reluctance to lower rates, but I respect his caution on this matter and will take his views into account.”
C) “I’ll certainly hear out the President, but the Fed will act in the best interest of the long-run economy.”
D) “Would you like fries with that rate cut, Mr. President?”
2. Trump has also said that anybody who disagrees with him will never be:
A) The Attorney General.
B) The FBI Director.
C) Secretary of State.
D) National Security Advisor.
E) A Supreme Court Justice.
F) Defense Secretary.
G) Homeland Security Director.
H) A member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
I) Director of the CIA.
J) Director of the National Archives.
K) Library of Congress Director.
L) Kennedy Center Chairperson.
M) National Zoo Director.
N) White House architect.
O) An election official in Georgia.
P) His wife.
Q) His child.
R) His butler.
S) A member of the President’s Own Marine Corps Jazz Band.
T) His muse.
U) The guy who runs the White House elevator.
V) The caddy who writes down his golf scores.
W) Prime Minister of Canada.
X) President of Venezuela.
Y) A citizen of Greenland.
Z) A Super Bowl half-time act.
3. What will the Republican Senate do with the Warsh nomination?
A) Reject it on the grounds that a politicized Fed threatens the stability of the national, nay the world, economy.
B) Reject it on the grounds that someday there will be a Democratic president and then they’ll be forced to accept that choice just to be fair.
C) Confirm it with unanimous Republican support.
D) Confirm it after allowing Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul to vote no.
4. If the Fed doesn’t lower interest rates at the first meeting over which Warsh presides, what is Trump LEAST LIKELY to do?
A) Accept it as the judgement of someone who knows more about monetary policy than he does.
B) Try to fire Warsh, even though the Supreme Court is likely to reject his power to do so.
C) Invoke the Insurrection Act against the Fed and set interest rates through executive order.
D) Invade Greenland.
5. To get this plum assignment, Warsh had to do what?
A) Promise he would lower interest rates as long as he could be confident that it was the best long-run move for the economy.
B) Promise Trump he’d vote to lower interest rates. Absolutely, yes, he would. (Never mind it takes a majority of the 12 members and at best there are probably only two or three that might vote with him.)
C) Promise Trump he’ll do exactly as told by the White House.
D) Tell Trump that he is the greatest monetary theorist ever as well as the greatest president ever, and that includes Lincoln who could have avoided the whole Civil War if he had just made a real estate deal with Jefferson Davis, and that he’s also the fittest man ever to occupy the White House and that he deserves 10 Nobel Peace Prizes, as well as the prize for nuclear physics, and that he loves both his ties and his steaks and that he has built the best buildings ever since the pyramids and that, well, frankly, the pyramids aren’t really so great and that he was cheated out of the 2020 election as well as several other offices he could have won if it wasn’t for Sleepy Joe Biden and that he’s really looking forward to playing the Intifada Course at Trump International at Gaza Dunes and that not only was he right to get Maduro out of Venezuela but there are a lot of other shit hole countries that could use some straightening out and…
Answers
1: D
2: All answers are correct.
3: D
4: A
5: Probably C, but definitely D.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 