Targets

The folks from NJ said they’re having a fine time visiting Ontario. Drove up with their two little geriatric dogs earlier in the week. “People here seem so friendly, and calm,” she said. “Maybe that’s because you don’t have Trump.”

We talked on the sidewalk while the mutts and Cody shared a water bowl. They apologized for “the 51st state thing,” for tariffs, the trade war and for their present, “trying to make Canada an enemy. And Mexico.”

The biggest beef? “He can’t leave anything alone.”

And that brings us to the Fed.

The American president, unlike any big cheese before him, has been trying to radically change monetary policy. He wants interest rates to plunge – from the current range of 4.25-4.5% all the way down to the 1% range.

Economists say he’s nuts. Wall Street would have a cow. Maybe a herd. The bond market would likely respond not by crashing yields but by pushing them higher in anticipation of the inevitable – a massive spike in inflation as all that stimulus washed over the economy.

But Trump wants immediate gratification – more borrowing, spending and investment. He wants asset values to explode higher, including equities as the cost of corporate borrowing plunges. He wants global trade dominance, which would result as the US dollar plunged in value on the rate cut, increasing exports. And he wants cheaper carrying costs for that $36 trillion in government debt, to which he is about to add $4 trillion.

So, his plan? Take over the Fed. End decades of central bank independence. Copy what RFK Jr. is doing for measles or puppy-shooting Kristi Noem for alligators.

The campaign so far has involved public humiliation and abuse of Fed boss Jerome Powell. (He is immune from firing before his term expires next May.) Trump has called him a numbskull and knucklehead, pronounced him incompetent and demanded he resign.

Powell won’t. So Trump accused him of criminal behaviour with regard to a big renovation of the Fed headquarters that’s been taking place. That was too stupid to gain traction.

Then Trump moved to fill a vacancy on the Fed board (rate decisions are arrived at by a vote of the internal committee, called the FOMC) with a partisan toady. And now, as he works to neuter Powell from within, he’s attacking another Fed board member, accusing her of personal mortgage fraud, insisting she quit. The fact she’s black and female just makes the target juicier.

For her part, Lisa Cook has told the prez to get stuffed. “I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet.”

(The mortgage app she filed before joining the Fed listed two properties as principal residences, one of 22,000 such applications filed in 2021. One was a rental. The Trump-appointed official who blew the whistle is also a Powell adversary. In America in 2025, everything is political.)

Fed boss Jerome Powell and board member Lisa Cook. Both are Trump targets.

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Well, Trump says he may fire Cook – which he can do. That would open up another board seat for a MAGA appointee, and an extra vote for slashing interest rates. And there’s no reason to think things will stop with Cook. Every FOMC member is currently being scrutinized for any personal, professional or political blemish that might make them fair game.

Mr. Market is not happy about this. The Cook stuff has hit the dollar and halted a stock market advance. Everybody expects the Trump tariffs to increase inflation as time passes (those levies have swollen nine-fold under this administration) and crashing borrowing rates would throw gas on a smouldering blaze.

Meanwhile everyone is acutely aware this president makes emotional, illogical, damaging, capricious decisions after he fired the chief data person when weak job numbers were reported. She had nothing to do with the stats. But off with her head!

Tomorrow Powell makes a pivotal speech at the annual Jackson Hole (Wyoming) central banker gabfest. Will he push back? Trash talk Trump? Defend Cook? Or just quietly and professionally make the case for monetary policy caution in a time of chaos?

Meanwhile on the sidewalk, around the water bowl the NJ tourists said it best.

“Enough drama. Maybe we’ll just stay.”

About the picture: “The guardian dog photo was taken just east of Calgary at a feedlot,” writes Jmes.  “The guardian was very calm but when he stood up the sheep all gathered around him. I think they must naturally put a lot of faith in him. The pile of fur in the lower right is actually another guardian – he barely moved.”

To be in touch or send a picture of your beast, email to ‘garth@garth.ca’.

Source: https://www.greaterfool.ca/2025/08/21/targets/