ECONOMY/FEDERAL RESERVE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump praised Jerome Powell as ‘strong, committed and smart’ last year when he nominated the former banker to lead the Federal Reserve. Now, the president apparently thinks Powell is a dangerous lunatic. In an extraordinary series of attacks this week, Trump called the Fed ‘crazy,’ ‘loco’ and said it’s ‘gone wild’ with interest-rate hikes. And he blamed the central bank, in part, for the latest sharp decline in the stock market..Trump’s battle with the Fed played out as markets tumbled Wednesday, then whipsawed Thursday [10-11-18] before turning sharply lower late in the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down Thursday another 545 points, bringing its two-day decline to over 1,300 points, or more than 5 percent. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also declined again on Thursday. In the process of attacking the Fed in such an unprecedented manner, Trump has alarmed senior advisers and forced them into public walk-backs. And he’s unnerved market watchers and former government officials who fear the sharp broadsides could undermine the Fed’s longstanding role as a politically neutral arbiter of interest-rate policy — charged with making tough decisions with a focus on the long-term interest of the U.S. economy.”
–Ben White, “Trump goes to war with the Fed,” Politico, October 11, 2018 3:27 pm