Trump is meeting with an ex-bank CEO who wants to abolish the Federal Reserve and return to the gold standard<\/h1>\n
Bob Bryan<\/p>\n
As President-elect’s Donald Trump’s transition rolls on, more and more attention is being paid to possible selections for a variety of high-ranking positions and meetings that might help decide these appointments.<\/p>\n On Monday, Trump will meet with John Allison, the former CEO of the bank BB&T and of the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute.<\/p>\n There have been reports<\/a> that Allison is being considered for Treasury secretary<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trump’s has on the campaign trail questioned the future of the Federal Reserve’s political independence<\/a>, but Allison takes that rhetoric a step further. While running the the Cato Institute, Allison wrote a paper in support of abolishing the Fed.<\/p>\n “I would get rid of the Federal Reserve because the volatility in the economy is primarily caused by the Fed,” Allison wrote in 2014 for the Cato Journal<\/a>, a publication of the institute.<\/p>\n Allison said that simply allowing the market to regulate itself would be preferable to the Fed harming the stability of the financial system.<\/p>\n “When the Fed is radically changing the money supply, distorting interest rates, and over-regulating the financial sector, it makes rational economic calculation difficult,” Allison wrote<\/a>. “Markets do form bubbles, but the Fed makes them worse.”<\/p>\n Allison also suggested that the government’s practice of insuring bank deposits up to $250,000 should be abolished and the US should go back to a banking system backed by “a market standard such as gold.”<\/p>\n Allison also argued for higher capital reserves of up to 20% of assets at banks. On the other hand, he also argued that the government should repeal three of the broadest banking regulations.<\/p>\n “We should raise capital standards, but it is even more important to eliminate burdensome regulations \u2014 including Dodd-Frank, the Community Reinvestment Act, and Truth in Lending,” Allison wrote. “About 25 percent of a bank’s personnel cost relates to regulations. Banks cannot pay the regulatory costs and have high capital standards.”<\/p>\n This is similar to Trump’s desire to roll back regulation<\/a> \u2014 including Dodd-Frank \u2014 on financial institutions, though he has since backtracked somewhat<\/a>.<\/p>\n It is unclear if any of Allison’s policy views will ultimately become a part of Trump’s plan, but given the unconventional nature of his ideas, the meeting is notable.<\/p>\n![\"undefined\"](\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/undefined.jpg\")
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