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“I respect his independence,” former President Nixon reassured the White House crowd at the 1970 swearing-in of Fed Chair Arthur Burns.

“However, I hope that independently he will conclude that my views are the ones that should be followed.”

There’s no video of the event, so it’s hard to say for sure, but I’m guessing that was meant as a joke.

It’s also exactly how things worked out.

Burns famously allowed Fed policy to become subservient to Nixon’s political goals, fueling the 1970s epidemic of inflation.

The much-maligned Fed chair reportedly acknowledged…

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