Kevin Warsh’s Fed Will End the War on Main Street and Trucking

Kevin Warsh doesn’t judge the Federal Reserve should sacrifice Main Street to prevention Wall Street.

That favoritism matters much than astir truckers realize. Because for the past 3 years, the other doctrine , that cooling the labour marketplace by keeping recognition costly would someway hole ostentation , has been the guiding rule down Fed policy. And trucking absorbed each spot of that pain.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published conscionable weeks earlier his nomination, Warsh laid retired his lawsuit against the existent Fed approach. “Money connected Wall Street is excessively easy, and recognition connected Main Street is excessively tight,” helium wrote. The Fed’s “bloated equilibrium sheet” had created conditions wherever large organization players could entree inexpensive wealth portion tiny businesses and moving Americans faced the squeeze.

If you’ve been watching freight rates collapse, bearer exits mount, and operator wages autumn down inflation, you already knew thing was wrong. Now you cognize what to telephone it.

The Federal Reserve hiked involvement rates 11 times betwixt March 2022 and July 2023, pushing the national funds complaint from adjacent zero to 5.25-5.50% , the highest level since 2001. The complaint stayed astatine that highest for 14 months earlier the archetypal chopped came successful September 2024.

The stated extremity was to “cool” the labour market. Fed officials repeatedly cited “elevated wage pressures” arsenic justification for keeping rates restrictive. The mentation , based connected thing economists telephone the Phillips Curve , holds that debased unemployment causes ostentation due to the fact that workers request raises that companies walk connected arsenic higher prices.

There’s conscionable 1 occupation with that mentation erstwhile applied to trucking: operator wages weren’t keeping up with ostentation successful the archetypal place.

According to the American Transportation Research Institute’s 2025 Operational Costs report, operator wages accrued conscionable 2.4% successful 2024. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported ostentation astatine 2.9% for the aforesaid period. That’s not wage-driven inflation. That’s workers falling down portion being blamed for economical conditions they didn’t create.

The Fed was warring a phantom.

That’s however galore consecutive months the ISM Manufacturing PMI spent successful contraction territory, from November 2022 done December 2024. It was the longest manufacturing contraction streak connected record. Through December 2025, the scale remained successful contraction for 9 much months, bringing the full to 35 retired of 38 months successful antagonistic territory since the Fed began its tightening cycle.

The December 2025 ISM speechmaking came successful astatine 47.9, the lowest of the year. New orders contracted for the 4th consecutive month. The employment sub-index showed manufacturing jobs declining for 11 consecutive months.