How to Fix the Federal Reserve

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- What should you do about an interventionist central bank pretending to be a laissez-faire regulator?

That was the topic of my Masters in Business conversation with Danielle DiMartino Booth, founder of Quill Intelligence and author of “Fed Up: An Insider’s Take on Why the Federal Reserve is Bad for America.”

From 2006 to 2015, DiMartino Booth was chief adviser to the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which gave her a front-row view of the financial crisis. She is critical of the Fed’s policy decisions before, during and after the crisis — particularly the fact that rates remain at emergency levels more than a decade after it ended. Central banks both here and around the world have conditioned the economy to be dependent on ultra-low rates. She reminds us that this was one of the foundational central-banking errors that led to the financial crisis in the first place.

We also discuss the failures of Congress to respond fiscally, leaving the Fed as the only game in town.

DiMartino Booth’s favorite books can be seen here; a transcript of our conversation is available here.

You can stream and download our full conversation, including the podcast extras, on Apple iTunes, Overcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Bloomberg and Stitcher. All of our earlier podcasts can be found here.

Next week, we speak with Jan van Eck, chief executive officer of of Van Eck Associates, an ETF and mutual fund manager that runs about $49 billion in funds and client assets.

To contact the author of this story: Barry Ritholtz at britholtz3@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Barry Ritholtz is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is chairman and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, and was previously chief market strategist at Maxim Group. He is the author of “Bailout Nation.”

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