Why is Zohran Mamdani ridiculed while Kevin Hassett is honored?

Fed officials rate the travesty as much as New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. Arguably central bankers rate higher.

To see why, stop and consider how politics, pundits and economists have collapsed to elevate their own understanding of basic economics through Mamdani’s rhetorical obfuscation. Doesn’t New York’s socialist mayor know that the “rent freeze” and other efforts to make cheap what isn’t cheap will result in a scarce supply of the apartments Mamdani wants to call affordable?

What is important and also obvious is that Mamdani’s critics are not unfair. A rent freeze, if real, would put a damper on new apartment development in New York and act as a disincentive to improving existing apartment buildings. Why create or improve something that will not attract an interest in the market? And it’s not just the rent freeze.

Mamdani has promised wage floors that could do for city hiring what a rent freeze does for development. This is the chaos that results when politicians and government officials more broadly substitute their microscopically limited knowledge of the market for the market itself. The scarcity of the marketable good defined as affordable is a certain consequence, as is unemployment, and often crisis when we remember that crises are never economic, but always and everywhere the result of government intervention.

That government intervention is the crisis brings Kevin Hassett to mind. Widely seen as President Trump’s front-runner to be the next Fed Chair, Hassett said publicly last week that he wanted to “get to a much lower interest rate” over the long term. Remarkable about Hassett’s proclamation is that while it was news, it landed far from the headlines of major newspapers. That’s assuming he made it at all. More to the point, Hassett’s declaration was not the subject of feverish editorials from the right. Unknown why.

While Mamdani has rightly been blasted by deep-thinking types for his adamant stance on New York City’s price floors and housing caps, Hassett is much more than just a Mayor-elect with his calls for cheaper access to dollars not just exchangeable for apartments in New York, but every single market available not just stateside, but across the world. Where is the outrage?

Specifically, where is the outrage when considering the majesty of compound returns? While it is disturbing to think that Mamdani is imposing his financial illiteracy on New York City landlords, renters, and would-be renters, it cannot be said enough that nearly every American earns in dollars, and importantly, saves in dollars. Still, Hassett isn’t just calling for a rate freeze a la Mamdani, he’s implying that his Fed will make Gracie Mansion look like Adam Smith. What is the issue or should it be about the Fed.

As dumb as the economics of politicians on both sides of the political aisle are, the economics of the world’s largest employer of economists is a monument to how ridiculous the profession is and realistically always has been. Economists are often said to be monolithic in their beliefs about things, as if unanimity among PhDs is somehow indicative of wisdom. Is not.

It is accepted wisdom within the walls of the Fed that economic growth causes inflation, that war brings with it an economic boom, not to mention that the central bank can turn economic growth on and off by setting interest rates high or low depending on the “temperature” of the economy. With his latest comments, it’s clear that Hassett shares these beliefs about the Fed’s strength.

Or maybe it doesn’t. Which arguably casts even more doubt on his thinking that he would say anything to please the man responsible for his appointment. Either way, why does Mamdani’s drool scorn where Hassett’s rate admires reverence?