Those of us who follow economic news as well as politics were treated to a view of two sides of this country. Turn on a news channel and there is Donald Trump, burly, blonde, braggadocious, belligerent, rude to hostile questioners, promising things he cannot deliver, but doing so in clear, easily understood terms – build a wall, raise tariffs, torture our enemies. Turn to a financial channel and there is Federal Reserve Board chair Janet Yellen, petite, white haired, modest in demeanor, calm, polite to a newly skeptical press, seeming to promise the economic effects that central bankers can no longer deliver, but unlike the plain-speaking Trump, in opaque Fedspeak that leaves even skilled translators scratching their heads.
I leave an explanation of the political wannabee to my betters in the political columns, and try here to explain what Yellen is doing, believes she is going to do, and the condition of the American economy as the nation prepares for what is shaping up to be a battle for control of the executive branch of our government between Hillary Clinton, representing an increasingly left-leaning Democratic Party, and Donald Trump, representing an inchoate-if-not-incoherent set of economic policies he would institute given the opportunity.
