Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Chairman Powell vs. Trump: Part 309.. 4-17-25
Thu, 17 Apr 2025
In this episode, Scott Becker discusses the ongoing clash between Fed Chair Jerome Powell and President Trump, highlighting Powell’s steady leadership amidst political pressure and economic chaos.
Chapter 1: Who is Scott Becker and what is this episode about?
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Chairman Powell versus President Trump, Part 309. And I say jokingly, Part 309, you get the sense that these two people truly hate each other. And that's quite frankly, okay.
Chapter 2: Why is Chairman Powell considered a great leader?
chairman powell i believe is one of the great leaders of this generation he's worked through democratic administration republican administrations he was appointed by either a democrat or republican but then made fed chair by president obama or vice versa with bush and obama but either way the guy's a really bright guy that deals with political pressure better than anybody that i've seen in this generation now the second part of this is president trump wants to control the fed wants to control what's going on in straits
Chapter 3: How does President Trump want to influence the Federal Reserve?
He wants to hit the tariff game hard, but also lower interest rates so he can keep the stock market up. So he pounds on Chairman Powell regularly to bring interest rates down. Now, Chairman Powell, who understands economics, is really a very gifted guy. I don't mean this as a negative about President Trump. I'm not an anti-Trump guy. I do think he's a little bit all over the place.
Chapter 4: What is Scott Becker's view on the conflict between Powell and Trump?
But by and large, there's a lot of things he does that I really agree with. But in terms of his take on Chairman Powell... He is way off. This guy is the brightest statesman we have. He's not a political whore. He's a really smart person, and he's trying to do his best to fight inflation, keep the job market good, and manage all these different things.
Well, he's got a White House that's going in all different directions. The last White House, he had a fight because he did so much inflationary spending that he couldn't bring rates down, notwithstanding Elizabeth Warren telling him to bring rates down because the inflationary spending, the surplus deficit spending by the government was so bad that he had to fight that.
Now he's got to fight the tariffs and the other craziness that's going on. And again, I'm a big believer that other countries treat us fairly on trade as well. So I'm not against what President Trump is doing here. I also believe we need to have certain industries in the United States. I see all the memes about, oh, my God, we don't want people making socks here.
But we better be able to make computer chips, ships, planes, all kinds of stuff, pharmaceuticals that are essential if we end up in a serious fight or challenge or conflict. So we got to do some of those things again. Debt. By either administration kills companies, countries, nations, families, everybody.
We hate all this surplus spending, this deficit spending, but we love watching this Powell versus Trump thing. We just don't want Powell to give up the fight. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
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