The Institutional Risk Analyst

My view of Fed “independence," if you talk about absolute independence, it's nonsense. You can't have one piece of the government that becomes an autonomous power running around doing whatever it wants. That's ridiculous. But the Fed should be independent of the President and the Treasury. The reason why this is completely clear was explained by none other than William McChesney Martin: The Treasury is the borrower.

“A higher money price of gold is best read as a symptom of a weaker currency. It isn't really the gold going up, it's the dollar or fiat currency in general going down.” That seems to me to be right. And then he says, “The value of gold lies in being independent from political discretion. Fiat money is a claim on the future discretion of politicians.” Isn't that good?

The Trump budget package is priority number one on Capitol Hill, but odds of the big tax bill passing are falling every day. The White House still needs 25 votes in the House and May is upon us.

So when we ask why large banks are so big, the answer is that the Federal Reserve Board allows large BHCs to use more leverage

The Fed by definition cannot make a profit and is always an expense to the Treasury, thus operating losses are a expense to the taxpayer

The real message to the FOMC is this: hike another 75bp in July and then let the Fed funds target sit for a few meetings...