President Donald Trump spent Thursday calling interest rates artificially high and the Federal Reserve's Board political, all while praising Chair Kevin Warsh, the man he installed to run it. [1] The venue for the next act is already booked. The Kansas City Fed's symposium convenes August 27 through 29 at Jackson Lake Lodge, and Warsh delivers his first keynote as chair on Friday, August 28, themed around financial innovation and payments. [2]

The pressure meets a committee moving the other way. Minutes from the July meeting, released Wednesday, show many participants judged higher rates likely necessary if inflation did not decline, and three dissented in favor of hiking immediately from the current 3.50 to 3.75 percent target range. [3] Warsh's problem is arithmetic wearing a lanyard: the president's demand points one direction, the inflation projections point the other.

Follow the incentives and the keynote writes itself into a box. If Warsh signals ease, he confirms the Board's critics who call it an arm of the White House. If he holds the hawkish line, he hands his patron a public rebuke on live television. A chair who has abolished forward guidance bought himself silence, not safety — the market will parse every adjective on Friday morning regardless. [1][3]

Powell sits on that Board too, now as a governor, which makes Trump's political-board complaint a critique of his own appointments. Nobody at the podium will say so. [1]

-- SAMUEL CRANE, Washington