Two Indicators: Inside the Fed, then and now

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2023

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A lot of the time, economic policy can seem pretty impersonal — cold, hard, data-driven. But at the heart of the Federal Reserve are people: fallible, complicated people who are just doing their best to steer the economy in the right direction.

Often, we remember them just for their economic decisions. But today, we're airing two episodes from our daily economics show The Indicator that profile the people inside the Fed. First, we're heading back to the 1970s to revisit Arthur Burns' oft-criticized stint as Fed chair. Next, we have a conversation with Mary Daly, the current president of the San Francisco Fed, about her remarkable path from high school dropout to one of the most important economic voices in the nation.

These two Indicator episodes were originally produced by Viet Le and Brittany Cronin. They were fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and Dylan Sloan and edited by Kate Concannon. The Planet Money version was produced by Dylan Sloan, engineered by Josh Newell and edited by Dave Blanchard.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:03.0	You know, when you think about historical figures, a lot of them get reduced to like a single
0:10.0	piece of trivia.
0:11.0	Yeah, name any famous historical figure, like Napoleon.
0:15.0	Short French General in a funny hat.
0:17.0	Or Amelia Earhart.
0:20.0	Lady Pyle who disappeared?
0:22.0	Now think about people like former chairs of the Federal Reserve Bank.
0:27.4	They don't always achieve household name status while they're in office.
0:31.2	And after they leave, the passage of time usually boils down their tenure to a sentence.
0:36.8	If they even get that.
0:38.1	Take Arthur Burns, Chairman of the Fed in the 1970s.
0:41.8	His name has been invoked recently by commentators in the financial press, but as a cautionary
0:46.6	tale.
0:47.6	I don't think Jay Powell wants to be the next Arthur Burns.
0:50.8	He doesn't want to be Arthur Burns or avoiding being another Arthur Burns.
0:54.9	Arthur Burns.
0:55.9	Arthur Burns.
0:56.9	Woof again.
0:57.9	Hello, and welcome to Planet Money.
1:01.9	I'm Adrian Ma.
1:02.9	And I'm Waylon Wong.
	...

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