Arthur Burns: shorthand for Fed failure?

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 February 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

History remembers Arthur Burns as the Fed chair who let inflation run rampant. That's precisely the outcome that current Fed chair Jerome Powell wants to avoid. Today, we look back at the '70s to find out what went wrong.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:07.0	You know, when you think about historical figures, a lot of them get reduced to like a single
0:16.5	piece of trivia.
0:17.5	Yeah, name any famous historical figure, like Napoleon.
0:21.5	A short French general in a funny hat.
0:24.8	Or Amelia Earhart.
0:27.5	Lady Pile who disappeared?
0:29.5	Well, now think about people like former chairs of the Federal Reserve Bank.
0:35.3	They don't always achieve household name status while they're in office.
0:39.2	And after they leave, the passage of time usually boils down their tenure to a sentence
0:44.5	if they even get that.
0:46.3	Take Arthur Burns, Chairman of the Fed in the 1970s.
0:49.9	His name has been invoked recently by commentators in the financial press, but as a cautionary
0:54.7	tale.
0:55.7	I don't think Jay Powell wants to be the next Arthur Burns.
0:59.0	He doesn't want to be Arthur Burns.
1:00.5	He's a boy being another Arthur Burns.
1:02.7	Arthur Burns.
1:03.7	Arthur Burns.
1:04.7	Wolf again.
1:06.4	This is the indicator for money.
1:07.8	I'm Adrian Ma.
	...

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