At 12:01 a.m. Friday, President Trump's two worst economic ideas finally collided — and made each other even worse.
To be sure, there are a lot of terrible economic theories espoused by this president (tax cuts pay for themselves, government shutdowns are fun, scam artists should roam free, etc.). But the specific bad ideas I'm referring to are:
Last fall, Trump began loudly complaining about the Fed's interest-rate hikes, in defiance of a multidecade-long policy for the White House to never comment on Fed decisions. The reason for this norm is clear: Central banks must be politically independent in both practice and perception in order to credibly commit to stable prices.