[philwelch]

IMO there’s a general pattern in which the remaining independent, expert-driven institutions simply have to pick up the slack left by America’s increasingly populist and dysfunctional elected government. This isn’t necessarily a good or sustainable strategy since it only makes the populists more motivated to mess around with those institutions. But it works.

The FED’s chartered goals are “maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.” For decades, economists have been dubious about maximum employment being a useful or productive goal for monetary policy, but it remains a goal nonetheless. Even though they aren’t bailing out Wal-Mart with this deal, you could argue that even if they were, the employment clause of their charter would justify it.