Talk:Jerome Powell/Archive 1

Plagiarism?
Several parts of this article closely mimic the Nov. 2nd NY Times article at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/business/economy/jerome-powell-fed-chairman.html. Is the NY Times plagiarizing this article or is it the other way around? 47.185.104.184 (talk) 01:34, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I personally don't see any similarities between the two. Could you specify which part you see as being plagiarized? --Daffy123 (talk) 14:27, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Background
Because the biggest war of his lifetime was drafting young men during the time Powell was an undergrad, it would be interesting to know how a person with a desire to perform public service ended up with no military service during the Vietnam Era. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.152.216.213 (talk) 23:03, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Powell's term begins February 5, 2018
He will be Chair of the FOMC on Feb 3, but not Chair of the Board of Governors until Feb 5. 

For comparison, here's a similar press release for Yellen: https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/other20140130a.htm

Note that she, too, became Chair of the FOMC before becoming Chair of the Board of Governors. The latter date is the official date she took office as Fed Chair. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.232.132.255 (talk) 07:47, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Criticism from President Trump, addition?
Regarding the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States & the socio-economic impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic:

In yet another explosive tirade, Trump reportedly pressured Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to encourage the Federal Reserve to do more to stimulate the economy. Trump complained Powell is damaging his presidency and should never have been appointed. Mnuchin encouraged Trump to nominate Powell in 2017.

Add to Jerome Powell? X1\ (talk) 23:55, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-urged-mnuchin-to-pressure-feds-powell-on-economic-stimulus-in-explosive-tirade-about-coronavirus/2020/03/11/db7bfeea-63c9-11ea-b3fc-7841686c5c57_story.html


 * I merged this section with his career, as I think it makes more sense to see Trump's comments in the sequence of Powell's actions. Trump starts off annoyed (2018), then gets very angry (2019), and finally ends up praising him (2020).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.255.90.188 (talk) 13:09, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Lacking a neutral point of view
Quite a few parts in the intro paragraphs lack neutrality (in favor of hawkish monetary policy). They rely heavily on citations from opinion columnists without showing opposing views. In some cases, the opinion columns provide more neutrality than the article. For instance:

"As Powell continued to apply high levels of monetary stimulus to further raise asset prices and support growth, the resulting disconnect between asset prices and the economy became controversial, both for the simultaneous bubbles recorded in most asset classes, and the historic widening of wealth inequality."

This appears to be a policy not particularly controversial, based on board of governors discussions & given he has been chair for two presidents of opposing parties. Some more context is needed

"So dominant, and distorting, were Powell's actions on asset prices – despite a pandemic, divided Congress, weak economy, low buybacks, and trade wars – that by the end of 2020, Bloomberg called Powell, 'Wall Street's Head of State', and that his actions were 'exuberantly asymmetric'."

I'm not sure I understand how Powell's actions conflict with a pandemic, divided Congress, weak economy, trade wars, etc. Surely the conventional response to this would be dovish monetary policy?

How best can we improve this article to avoid bias? I wanted to avoid unilaterally editing this, but it also appears to not meet Wikipedia's standards.

Matthew Bauer (talk) 02:09, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm just an anonymous user, but I agree with Matthew Bauer strongly. The 20-21 section is wildly, hilarious biased in the direction of hawkish monetary policy. It's filled with - and I'm sorry for being blunt - very dumb and crank-ish opinions. There's no consensus among economists that the Fed's actions have led to any sort of an asset bubble, but there are something like a dozen quotes about how Powell is creating asset bubbles. Whoever wrote this was far too obsessed with that particular topic. -Anon — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:7000:2F40:E900:C909:6D97:984A:FE93 (talk) 04:40, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I have seen this article and am not sure what the bias is? In reference to your first blockquote, Powell has applied levels of monetary stimulus that are without precedent in history (per the refs), and the disconnect between the stock market and the actual economy is now also at levels unprecedented in history (per the refs).  Are you saying that Powell's policy is "moderate", or that there is no "disconnect"?  Is it not really clear?
 * Your second blockquote about Powell's actions on asset prices overriding the effects of the recession etc. are also in the refs (per Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, and others). There are also refs from some pretty notable economists underlying this?  The issue that the market commentators are having is that while Powell started off the pandemic with unprecedented but good actions, they seem to have gone too far now.  In the WSJ/Bloomberg this week, we have Goldman, Bank of America, and Citibank all with articles saying that their indicators for euphoria are all at unprecedented levels, and Bank of America (and kind of Goldman), directly blaming the Fed. "BofA Warns U.S. Policy Is Fueling a Bubble in Wall Street Prices". In my experience, it is very rare to see the WSJ or Bloomberg carry a story from a major wall street bank criticizing the Fed so openly.  They are saying even stronger things about the Fed/Powell that are not in this article (and it seems to be escalating). Britishfinance (talk) 00:10, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
 * In relation to the IP, here is one of the most notable economists today, telling the most important newspaper in Switzerland, that the only entity moving stock markets is the Fed (and ECB and BOJ), and nothing else. "Mohamed El-Erian: «This Is Starting to Get to Dangerous Levels»". Usually, Bloomberg and the WSJ are quite conservative about calling bubbles, but we now have the capital markets desk of Bloomberg saying: "Pandemic-Era Central Banking Is Creating Bubbles everywhere".
 * The article seems to be referenced from high-grade financial sources, but If you have different sources that contradict then we should review them. I would certainly be willing to help if that works? Britishfinance (talk) 00:17, 16 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree with Matthew Bauer and the anonymous comment that the language is not neutral enough. I agree with Britishfinance that the view that monetary policy is dangerously loose merits representation here and that the sources are reliable. The article should not take the view that there is an asset bubble overall though; that doesn't seem encyclopedic unless there were a broad consensus on that point.
 * Let's navigate through this first by toning down the lede. It pushes the asset-bubble point of view. One paragraph has more than 15 footnotes, some appearing frantically in the middle of sentences. That's hard to read. The lede should be neutral and clear and easy to read, and not have many footnotes.  I may move some of that down into the later sections, probably keeping all the sources but with an adjusted balance and calmer phrasing. How's that? -- econterms (talk) 05:21, 20 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I strongly agree with what has been said here. The article is currently biased in favor of a valid but not universally held political belief that Powell is being overly dovish at the Fed. I have edited the lede substantially to try to even it out. Damilaville (talk) 15:41, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The additions appear to have come from a single, now CU blocked, IP user -- Guerillero  Parlez Moi 01:42, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Also from an SPA who has inserted poorly-sourced BLP violations misrepresenting Powell. SPECIFICO talk 01:41, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * El Erian may be widely broadcast in the media, but he is not among the most respected by economists. The banking house pundits, even less. A bubble can only be identified in hindsight. It is a false and POV choice of language. SPECIFICO talk 01:49, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Reliance on sound-bites
There's quite a lot of this in the "Asset price inflation" section. Some talking head said a thing, another head said another, and Powell said a thing that looks like (but maybe isn't) a response. It reminds me of a tendency in histories of the Great Depression to quote John D. Rockefeller, then quote Will Rogers, and call it a day. What's the point — that a lot of people believe Powell overdid it? Then say that outright, cite it, and move on. 67.180.143.89 (talk) 00:50, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Bizarre sentence in lead
Currently the lead ends thusly:

 It was not until Jerome Powell had been confirmed to extend his second term, he has indicated a reduction in Quantitative easing (QE) and Mortgage-backed security (MBS) purchases due to high inflation with the CPI reading in November 2021 reaching 6.8% according the to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the highest level in 40 years.

What I first noticed was "confirmed to extend his second term", which itself makes no sense. He has no option to "extend" his second term; the issue was whether he would be appointed by President Biden and then confirmed for a second term. So this I can fix. But then the rest of it might be beyond my understanding to fix; suffice it to say that it is syntactically nonsensical. Unschool 05:55, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

"The new Yellen" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect The new Yellen and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 July 9 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. TraderCharlotte (talk) 00:44, 9 July 2022 (UTC)