On Tuesday, in a rather startling political development, two of the designated “moderates” in the race entered where even Rand Paul is treading lightly: criticizing the Fed. We fear they do not both have the arguments down yet, but Chris Christie was far better than Jeb Bush.
The Business Times reported on Christie’s remarks during an appearance by the governor in Florida:
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Tuesday sharpened his criticism of the US Federal Reserve, suggesting the central bank’s “easy money” policies could fuel broader destabilisation of the global economy.
While the Fed’s crisis-era slashing of US interest rates to near zero was justified for awhile, Mr Christie said, that policy will cause “real problems as we move forward.”
According to the report, Christie also blamed the Federal Reserve for “[exacerbating] the gap between rich and poor.”
The topic of monetary policy also came up for Bush during an appearance on a New Hampshire television program, where he was asked about the effects of foreign currency manipulation on the American economy, to which he responded:
[Y]ou can make a case that in the last few years, given our monetary policy, that we’ve been manipulating our currency. We’ve never had a time where our central bank is just printing money like nobody’s business. And that depreciates our currency. It lowers our interest rates and depreciates our currency.
Joshua Pinho works for American Principles in Action.
