Conoscete certamente il Watergate, ma cosa sapete del Fedgate? Questo episodio del podcast di NPR, Planet Money, ricorda questo episodio ascoltando le registrazioni della Casa Bianca ai tempi di Nixon.

In today’s episode, we listen back through the Nixon White House tapes to search for evidence of an alarming chapter in American economic history: When the President of the United States seemingly flouted the norms of Fed Independence in order to pressure the Chair of the Federal Reserve Board into decisions that were economically bad in the long run but good for Nixon’s upcoming election.

The tale of Nixon and his Fed Chair, Arthur Burns, has become the cautionary tale about why Fed Independence matters. That choice may have started a decade of catastrophic inflation. And Burns’ story is now being invoked as President-elect Trump has explicitly said he’d like more control over the Federal Reserve.