Oh, Michael Burry is back with another spicy take that’s going to make Jerome Powell’s eye twitch. The guy who famously shorted the housing market before it face-planted in 2008 just went on Michael Lewis’s podcast and basically said the Federal Reserve is about as necessary as a chocolate teapot.
His exact words? The Fed has “the easiest job in the world.” Ouch. That’s like telling a brain surgeon their job is just “fancy cutting.”
But here’s where it gets interesting (and slightly unhinged, which is peak Burry). He thinks Trump might accidentally kill the Fed by trying to control it. “When Trump starts running the Fed, it might become the end of the Fed,” Burry said. “Because if he’s running the Fed, then everybody’s going to hate it, not just me.”
It’s like watching someone predict their own revenge plot will backfire spectacularly – and being oddly excited about it.
Burry’s beef with the Fed isn’t just philosophical posturing. He’s genuinely pissed about their timing. The Fed is gearing up to cut rates in December, even though inflation is starting to rear its ugly head again. His point? Why drop rates when there’s no real reason to? It’s like turning down the thermostat when it’s already getting cold outside.
“Dropping interest rates could ‘kill’ savers and fixed-income investors,” he argued. And honestly, he’s not wrong. If you’re a retiree living off bond yields, rate cuts are about as welcome as a root canal.
But here’s Burry’s wildest idea: just let the Treasury Department handle monetary policy. His logic? “They’re almost the same department already.” The Fed sets short-term rates and buys government debt, while Treasury issues the bonds that fund the government. It’s like having two people do one job, except one of them gets way more press coverage.
Now, before you dismiss this as another Burry hot take (remember when he compared the AI boom to the dot-com bubble?), consider this: the guy has a track record of being spectacularly right about spectacularly unpopular opinions. He saw the housing crisis coming when everyone else was still doing the Macarena at mortgage parties.
Burry’s been unusually chatty lately after years of social media silence. He’s launched a Substack, placed fresh bets against Nvidia and Palantir, and generally been stirring the pot like a caffeinated day trader. Whether he’s right about the Fed being unnecessary is anyone’s guess, but his timing is impeccable – questioning central bank independence right as political tensions around monetary policy are heating up.
The real question isn’t whether Burry is right about the Fed having the “easiest job in the world.” It’s whether the rest of us are ready for what happens if he is.