To the editor:

Poor Jerome Powell…he’s having that same old problem that seemingly pops up quarterly. The problem is the President is lobbying to get the Fed to lower interest rates in order to stimulate his sagging economy, while Powell is doing his sensitive job to keep the economy from going haywire.

What does the petulant man-child occupying what’s left of the White House do? He pouts and kicks and screams. I wish he’d hold his breath — indefinitely. But he speeds through those behaviors in order to reach what he does best…he threatens to get rid of Powell simply because Powell has had the good sense to do the job that he was hired to do. He hasn’t given into the pressure being applied by the purported economics genius, the one with six bankruptcies on his scurrilous resume. He wants someone as the head of the Fed to do exactly what the President wants in order to get his own way.

I know exactly how Jerome Powell must feel. When my youngest child, you may know him as Reese, was small enough to be carried in a youth seat behind my wife on her Schwinn, they had this exchange:

“Mom?”

“What, Reese?”

“Can we get a different dad…one that will let us have a pet?”

(What do you expect from a smart-alecky kid who would one day correct his third-grade teacher for using incorrect subject-verb agreement? Fortunately, my wife came up with an appropriate response to rescue dear old dad.)

She responded, “That’s not how it works.”

We get a kick out of this whenever she tells the story, and she’s happy to share it…and share it…and share it. It was funny coming from the curly-haired towhead. It’s sickening to hear from the petulant, draft-dodging “fortunate son.”

Yes, I know very much how Jerome Powell feels. And I well remember the immature, knee-jerk reaction of a child’s inability to deal with being told “No.” And we get to watch that post-pubescent behavior almost daily when our President is thwarted from getting his self-serving ways.

Keith R. Klawitter

Morgan