{"id":579108,"date":"2017-11-05T13:00:28","date_gmt":"2017-11-05T13:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=579108"},"modified":"2017-11-05T13:00:28","modified_gmt":"2017-11-05T13:00:28","slug":"matthew-benjamin-on-the-next-fed-chairman-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=579108","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Benjamin on the Next Fed Chairman"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Samuel Taube<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

Transcript:
\nSamuel Taube: Joining us again today is Matthew Benjamin, the Editorial Director of The Oxford Club and a former consultant for the World Bank. Matthew, thanks for joining us again.<\/p>\n

Matthew Benjamin: Glad to be back, Sam.<\/p>\n

ST: So a couple of weeks back, I understand that you attended a dinner hosted by the National Economists Club along with the current chair of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen.<\/p>\n

And that ties very nicely into what we’re discussing today, because Dr. Yellen’s term expires in February, as you well know. And President Trump is expected to appoint Jerome Powell, a current Federal Reserve Board of Governors member, to succeed her.<\/p>\n

So let me start with a very simple question: Why is the next Fed chair important for investors, and what are some big decisions that Powell is likely to face?<\/p>\n

MB: It’s a great question, Sam. First, a little bit about Jerome Powell: He goes by Jay. They call him Jay Powell. He was nominated in 2011 by former President Obama. He’s a Republican, but the deal that Obama struck with Senate Republicans was that he could get his Democratic nominee, Jerry Stein, through if he appointed him at the same time as a Republican.<\/p>\n

So Stein and Powell were both confirmed by the Senate and started terms in 2012. Stein has since gone; Powell is still there. And if, as expected, he is nominated to succeed Yellen, his job will be a big one.<\/p>\n

The last two Fed chairs basically focused on stimulating the economy after the Great Recession and the financial crisis. The next Fed chair’s job will be to unwind some of that stimulus.<\/p>\n

So as you know, part of the Fed’s stimulus program was something called quantitative easing. This was a very unique and unprecedented program to stimulate the economy by buying trillions of dollars of government bonds, mortgage-backed bonds.<\/p>\n

And the idea was to bring down long-term rates and flood the economy with liquidity. Some people would say it had a lot of success. The economy’s done very well in recent years. Unemployment has fallen to about 4.2%, right?<\/p>\n

ST: Pretty near full employment, yeah.<\/p>\n

MB: Exactly right. And the recovery is pretty much fully done. Powell’s job will be to unwind this: sell off or allow most of those securities to roll off the Fed’s $4.2 trillion balance sheet.<\/p>\n

Also, his job will be to gradually raise the fed funds rate, which is now 1.25% or around that.<\/p>\n

ST: Yeah.<\/p>\n

MB: It’s in a small range \u2013 gradually raise that to a level that the Fed would consider neutral. That’s a level that is neither stimulating nor slowing the economy.<\/p>\n

It’s not exactly clear where that is, but somewhere around 3% is the current thinking \u2013 lower than it used to be. So he’s got to do all these things and not upset the economy and the bond market.<\/p>\n

ST: A lot of responsibilities to handle, to be sure.<\/p>\n

MB: Exactly right.<\/p>\n

ST: So when you met with Janet Yellen earlier this month, did she have any insights about what’s coming for \u2026read more<\/a> <\/p>\n

Source:: Investment You<\/a><\/p>\n

The post <\/a>Matthew Benjamin on the Next Fed Chairman<\/a> appeared first on Junior Mining Analyst<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Samuel Taube Transcript: Samuel Taube: Joining us again today is Matthew Benjamin, the Editorial Director of The Oxford Club and a former consultant for the World Bank. Matthew, thanks for joining us again. Matthew Benjamin: Glad to be back, Sam. ST: So a couple of weeks back, I understand that you attended a dinner […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579108"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=579108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=579108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=579108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=579108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}