FEDERAL RESERVE INCOMPETENCE: The Sleeper Campaign Issue of 2016?

Since the Great Recession ended in 2009, the recovery has been slow and painful. Wages have been so stagnant that the average American family earns $1,000 a year less in income than it did in 2008. That’s why some two-thirds of people believe that their children won’t be better off than they were — a reversal of the American Dream. A growing number of people believe the Federal Reserve has hurt rather than helped the recovery. It has pursued zero-interest-rate policies that have perversely made it impossible for many businesses to get credit to expand. The Fed and other central banks have injected trillions of dollars into the global economy; according to the New York Sun, the result is that “the world is now afflicted by a public-sector debt bubble that could rupture in any of a number of countries.” The Fed’s blatant attempt to prop up asset prices has fueled inequality. The Fed’s low-interest-rate policies have “exacerbated the wealth gap between the poor and the rich, because the rich have assets,” former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg recently said. “And that is what is being hiked here because of low interest rates, whether they own stocks or whatever the case may be.”

Plus:

Jeff Bell, a former adviser to Ronald Reagan and now the director of policy at the American Principles Project, told the conference he was excited by a new poll his group commissioned from pollster McLaughlin and Associates. It asked 1,000 likely voters whether they supported a gold standard, while recognizing that many people would be unfamiliar with the concept. But a surprising 39 percent agreed that the country would be better off with one, with only 15 percent disagreeing. The remaining 46 percent did not know. Surprisingly, support for a fixed monetary rule crossed demographic divides. While 45 percent of Republicans backed gold, so too did 37 percent of Democrats. A surprising 39 percent of African Americans favored a gold standard, the same number as the general population. Hispanics, at 45 percent, and Asians, at 61 percent, were significantly more in favor of the concept. By age, 38 percent of those younger than 30 wanted a gold standard, while only 34 percent of those over 65 agreed.

That is surprising. At least, I’m surprised.