Spend five minutes talking with Stephen Moore and you’ll quickly realize the man is smart. Very smart. He understands both the complexities and the simplicities of economics, and he is willing to do what so few in This Town™ have the guts to do: shake things up and directly challenge faulty conventional wisdom — which, of course, is exactly why his nomination to the Federal Reserve Board failed.
Sadly, the elitists at the Federal Reserve Board and their most avid defenders in Washington are not interested in diversity of thought or a marketplace of ideas. Rather, the Fed is a jealous god and requires all to obey the special authority of its high priests and priestesses of the Almighty Dollar. If you think differently and dare to ask the tough questions that so few are willing to ask — for example, why has the dollar lost 95 percent of its purchasing power since the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913? — you’re a dangerous heretic who must be silenced and made into an example.
Don’t believe it? Just look at what happened to Moore. Shortly after President Trump nominated him to the Fed, the courts released the full details of his divorce, even against the wishes of both Moore and his ex-wife. The press jumped all over it, referring to Moore as an abusive husband and a deadbeat dad, which are quite shocking and frankly unbelievable claims to anyone who knows Moore.
I can’t think of a single conservative judge who would do the same to even the most distasteful authoritarian leftist nominee. Such an act is made with reckless disregard and, quite frankly, hatred for all those involved, including those hurt the worst by this shameful political stunt: Moore’s children. Yet this evil tactic worked — Moore was publicly tarred and feathered and branded an undesirable.
What warranted all of this? Moore was guilty of questioning business as usual at the Fed. Trillions of dollars are transferred every day based on the decisions of a few elite Federal Reserve Board governors, and the establishment viewed Moore as a threat to the Fed’s easy money scheme where the richest people and largest corporations benefit at the expense of the rest of us, who remain powerless as our wages remain stagnant and our purchasing power declines year after year.
We’ve seen this movie before, folks, and we’ll see it again. When the left and their establishment allies fear someone who speaks truth to power, they go for the jugular, throwing BS at the wall hoping something sticks. Facts? Truth? Decency? None of that matters. They’ll do whatever it takes to win. Sometimes, they are successful. That’s why they keep doing it. In this case, it appears they got to enough weak-kneed establishment Republicans to tank Moore’s nomination.
Every U.S. senator who voiced opposition to Moore’s nomination should be asked some simple questions. For one: Who was lobbying them to vote against Moore? And was the Fed itself involved? If so, it would certainly put to bed the notion of the Fed’s alleged “independence” or the concern that Moore would have somehow “politicized” an already highly political institution.
Furthermore, the GOP opponents of Moore must also be asked: Is the Federal Reserve really beyond reproach at a time in American history when plenty of two-income families are barely getting by? When we are experiencing the largest wealth gap in American history? When an entire generation is burdened by more than $1.4 trillion in student loan debt? When the unaccountable Fed is inexplicably allowed $4 trillion on its balance sheet? When our nation is saddled by a $22 trillion national debt? Really? Is Fed policy totally outside the realm of discussion?
I think we all know the answer. Moore certainly did. Moore understood the whole picture, recognizing that economic policy and monetary policy are inextricably linked to the larger issues facing American society and are not simply math problems to be solved by spreadsheets and algorithms.
The Fed, meanwhile, has been robbed of such perspectives for far too long, instead held captive to the swampy status quo, which is only becoming further detached from reality with each passing year. Moore could’ve changed that. He could’ve been a real force for the American people.
But that won’t happen because the hate mob won and Moore lost. This is what the left and their establishment cronies do, because the Republican Party still doesn’t seem to know who and what they’re up against. What a shame.
