Piping down at the Fed

With inflation rising and more officials forecasting rate hikes, Wall Street is watching how far his reforms will go

Photo by Aaron Schwartz / AFP via Getty Images

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Kevin Warsh pushed for “regime change” at the central bank last year. Now Wall Street is about to find out whether the new Fed chair will carry out drastic reforms, tip-toe changes or something in between.

An ex-Fed governor, Warsh helmed his first two-day meeting of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee in which policymakers voted to sit still on the benchmark 3.5% to 3.75% interest rate. That part was expected. More unexpected was Warsh’s announcement of five task forces that will re-examine how the Fed operates across areas like communications, inflation, and how it measures productivity.

Nine of 19 Fed officials forecasted a rate hike by year’s end, a striking change from March when no policymaker called for increasing interest rates.

This isn’t the economy that Warsh expected to........

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