Progressives need to make monetary policy something politicians have to answer for. The Fed’s policy is set by the 12 voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee FOMC, seven of whom are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. This process, and the views on monetary policy of the people who are appointed by it, deserves every bit as much scrutiny from activists, organizations, and politicians as Supreme Court nominations. Republicans and Tea Partiers have relentlessly warn of runaway inflation and denounced quantitative easing, even in the midst of the slump. But outside a rarified group of bloggers, there’s been no serious pushback from the left, or even any real sense that monetary policy is understood as a specific issue worth getting mad about.
Unfortunately, the other five voting members are not vetted by democratically elected officials, and are instead drawn from the Fed’s district banks. That means they come from a social and professional milieu likely to bias them in favor of the worldview of the financial industry, business owners, and the wealthy. Those groups all have vested interests in minimizing inflation while ignoring job growth.
MORE: Radical Economic Experiment Thats Quietly Keeping The Economy Afloat.