Tag: Gluskin Sheff

As the stock market falls, President Trump has turned on his pick to run the Federal Reserve, Jerome H. Powell. After the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday, the fifth consecutive quarterly increase, Mr. Trump fretted to aides that Mr. Powell would “turn me into Hoover,” a reference to the man who was president in the early years of the Great Depression. “If Powell gets terminated, what we’ve seen happen in the markets in the past few weeks will look like a walk in the park,” David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff, said in an email on Sunday. In a statement Sunday, Mr. Mnuchin said he had contacted the chief executives of six major banks to make sure their operations were running smoothly. The statement added that Mr. Mnuchin would convene a meeting of the President’s Working Group on financial markets, which he leads, to coordinate efforts to “assure normal market operations.” The Fed’s unanimous decision to raise its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday reflected the confidence of its officials that the economy remains strong — even as they insisted that future rate increases would depend on continued growth. By raising rates, the Fed is bringing to a close its long campaign of economic stimulus that began during the 2008 financial crisis, which included lowering interest rates to near zero. Many investors had also wanted a pause, and the decision set off another slide in stock prices. The law, however, does not address the president’s authority to remove Mr. Powell from his role as Fed chairman without removing him from the Fed’s board, a move that some of the president’s advisers have urged. A replacement for Mr. Powell would require Senate confirmation, and this person would join a policymaking committee that voted unanimously for the December rate increase. Some of Mr. Trump’s economic advisers have encouraged him to remove Mr. Powell, arguing that the decision would reverse recent stock declines.