Jay Powell’s Legacy

Appointed by President Trump in 2018, Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell has guided the central bank to make some significant changes during his tenure.

Before the pandemic, for instance, the Fed decided to “cut rates when unemployment was high but not raise them simply because it was low,” Allison Schrager explains. It adopted Flexible Average Inflation Targeting, which allowed for inflation to remain above 2 percent in order to offset earlier periods of lower inflation.

Powell also made smaller changes, like focusing on diversity and creating a committee to assess climate change and its potential impact on the financial system.

Now, as Powell’s chairmanship approaches its end next year, all eyes will be on his legacy. “On the one hand, Powell can claim the rare feat of taming inflation without triggering a recession,” Schrager writes. “On the other hand, that success was accompanied by years of politicization, discretionary policy, and an overemphasis on accommodation and ‘inclusive’ employment.”

Read Schrager’s take on the factors that will define the Powell Fed.

In addition to choosing their next mayor on November 5, New Yorkers will vote on a handful of housing-related proposals. “Proposals 2, 3, and 4 aim to accelerate the approval process for affordable and mixed-income housing construction, while Proposal 5 modernizes and consolidates city mapping functions,” Adam Lehodey explains. Read his breakdown of what each measure would mean for the city.

When Pat McMonigle joined the FBI after September 11, he knew his work would be meaningful. In his nearly two decades there, he ran informants into terrorist groups, deployed to war zones, and worked to recover hostages. “But excessive administration, obsolete technology, and careerist executives have degraded morale and distracted the bureau,” he writes. “What should be the world’s premier law enforcement agency has become top-heavy and self-absorbed.”

Read about a case that McMonigle calls “a devastating reminder of what happens when the FBI loses sight of its purpose,” and how the agency can correct course.

“Perhaps never in recent history have American cities so badly needed strong, pragmatic mayors—and gotten so few,” Joel Kotkin writes in our Autumn issue. Indeed, major urban centers have seen significant population decline, with reduced office footprints and jobs steadily shifting to other areas of the country. “But rather than realigning city budgets and working toward self-sufficiency,” Kotkin points out, “many mayors favor far-left policies on policing, rent control, education, and taxation that amount to what the late Fred Siegel described three decades ago as “‘a suicide of sorts.’”

Read about the cities that are suffering the most.

According to local officials, “intimate partner violence” in New York City was up 29 percent last year, and nearly 40 percent of felony assault cases since the outbreak of the pandemic have involved domestic violence. It may be unsurprising, then, that substance abuse also remains stubbornly high, given that those “high on drugs are more likely to do crazy things like beat their partners,” Naomi Schaefer Riley writes. “And in many places, drug use is becoming more legal, common, and culturally acceptable.”

Read her take.

“A man who could see beyond religion, class, and of course race. A vanishing breed.”

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