THERE ARE more than a few echoes of the Nixon era in the presidency of Donald Trump. Monetary reverberations are among them. Facing re-election in 1972, Richard Nixon felt he needed a strong economy at his back, and made a habit of haranguing Arthur Burns, the chairman of the Federal Reserve at the time. Burns recounted the meetings in his diaries: "The president looked wild; talked like a desperate man; fulminated with hatred against the press; took some of us to task..." Historians reckon Burns was too accommodating of Nixon's demands, and so helped launch the inflation of the 1970s. Mr Trump is now waging his own assault on the Fed's independence. He has repeatedly complained about the central bank's decisions and urged it to take a more doveish stance.
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