ECONOMY/FEDERAL RESERVE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump delivered some of his most pointed attacks yet on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Tuesday [10-23-18], calling the central bank the ‘biggest risk’ to the U.S. economy. In an Oval Office interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said Powell ‘almost looks like he’s happy raising interest rates’…Trump said he didn’t know under what circumstances he might attempt to remove the Fed chairman but added: ‘I’m very unhappy with the Fed because Obama had zero interest rates.’ The president’s comments came amid another volatile day for the stock market. A couple of weeks ago, when the three major equity market indexes dropped more than 3 percent in a day, Trump said the Fed had ‘gone crazy.’ Over the past few months, the president has given a number of different reasons why he‘s unhappy with the pace of the Fed’s rate hike campaign: He wants a weaker dollar to boost exports to help with trade negotiations; he doesn’t think inflation is at risk of getting out of control; and he wants to pay down the national debt. He has also generally said that he prefers low rates.”
–Victoria Guida, “Trump: Fed is ‘biggest risk’ to U.S. economy,” Politico, October 23, 2018 9:44 pm