In this in-depth interview, Mike Simonsen talks with Nick Timiraos, chief economics correspondent at the Wall Street Journal to discuss the recent history and future outlook of the Federal Reserve, including its response to crises, political pressures, and inflation management. Key topics include Powell&#x27;s legacy, the impact of geopolitical shocks, and the evolving approach to monetary policy.

It’s the start of a new era at the Fed. What happens next? 

Real Estate Conversations

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** Real Estate Conversations

## Transcript

It's the start of a new era at the Fed. What happens next? Today we have my guest, Nick Timmeros from the Wall Street Journal. Nick is the chief economics correspondent with the journal. He's the foremost journalist, expert on the Federal Reserve, and has reported extensively on Chairman Powell, as well as the inner workings of America's foremost economic policy organization.

Nick's book, Trillion Dollar Triage, is a wild look inside the Fed during the COVID emergency. So if you have opinions on the Fed and how the Fed operated, I highly recommend that book. It's really cool, minute by minute. And we'll talk about that a little bit today. But let's just jump right in. Nick, welcome to the show. Mike, thanks so much for having me.

Let's start today. So we're now recording. It's the end of the Jay Powell era. It's the start of the Kevin Warsh era. Give me a grade on Jay Powell. Give me your grade. I don't do grades. Look, I mean, the people that I talk to, they give him probably an A for the pandemic. They give him a low grade for 2021.

I think the question on 2021 is, do you want to grade on a curve? Because every central bank more or less blew the transitory inflation forecast. They were setting policy on a forecast in 2021 that inflation was going to come down quickly.

So you could give a, you know, like a gentleman's C or something lower for that. And then I think most people that I talk to outside of the administration give Powell high marks for how he has dealt with the last year, which is sort of a very belligerent, you know, antagonistic posture from the White House.

Obviously, obviously, if you're more sympathetic to the Trump administration, you know, you won't. So that's part of why I resist grades is I'm going to upset a lot of readers and compromise my objectivity. Yeah. OK, well, that's great. I appreciate that. That context is important. So so pandemic, the actual and the pandemic is really you're talking about that first quarter, second quarter of 2020.

That's been really where you're where your book really focuses a lot of the minute by minute crisis. So we'll dive into that in a second. The transitory inflation call was really the miss.

And then. And and and and now and now the big challenge is leaving with with Trump has been super, as you put it, belligerent about rates getting lower and is doing things like the lawsuits. There's there's there's some interesting, potentially interesting policy questions in there. But there's some other things about Powell in the last eight years.

And, for example, we didn't have we avoided recession. Did we get the soft landing like is it can we attribute that to Powell? So first, I think you're right. I mean, Powell will be remembered as the crisis chair. Right. If you go back eight years, he came in. He took over this plan of quietly normalizing policy. We had a long expansion after the global financial crisis.

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It’s the start of a new era at the Fed. What happens next?

Transcript

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It’s the start of a new era at the Fed. What happens next?

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.