By Peter Navarro | RealClearMarkets | March 19, 2026
In holding rates steady, Jerome Powell—the worst Fed Chair since Arthur Burns—has once again let his anti-Trump animus cloud his judgment. The damage will not show up only on Wall Street.
It will show up in the monthly payment on a starter home, the financing costs of a machine-tool purchase, the builder who delays a project, the manufacturer who shelves an expansion, and the family that watches its credit costs stay painfully high while the Powell Fed congratulates itself for being “disciplined.”
This is not just a spiteful and damaging policy mistake. It is a fundamental misreading of the economy.