Saturday, May 18, 2024

Uh oh (Monetary Policy Edition)

Visual Capitalist posted an infographic based on a Pew Research Center Poll from March 2023. It shows the level of trust that people had in various federal agencies.


What's scary to me is that 1) the Federal Reserve is near the bottom of the list, and 2) it's not even a government agency.

I have been teaching about the Federal Reserve every semester for almost 40 years. I have a lot of friends who work or worked there. Gosh ... I've applied for jobs there (or mostly with Federal Reserve Banks) perhaps 15 times.

Maybe I'm biased ... but I have a hard time thinking an entity that mostly employs macroeconomists is worth having an unfavorable impression of. Especially one that tries really hard to be transparent (literally hundreds of free publications available).

Having said all that, Americans have always viewed banking with suspicion, especially central banking. And the Federal Reserve does show up in a lot of conspiracy theories (no doubt because the spreaders read all the free literature). In addition, rural southern Utah is a hotbed of anti-Fed sentiment.

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