Round-up: Trump's new economic apocalypse. Life on K2-18b? Republicans are scared for their lives. Jan 6th rioters want what now?

Analysis of the week's events

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Trump’s new economic apocalypse

Not content with tanking global markets through his misguided trade war, Trump is waging a new campaign against the American economy. This time, his target is Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

The Federal Reserve is the U.S. central bank, which sets interest rates and regulates the banking sector. Its goal is to keep the economy stable and inflation low. The chairman of the Fed is appointed by the president, but they serve four year terms during which they are supposed to exercise independent judgement.

For a long time, independence has been considered the gold standard of central banking because it prevents the Fed chairman from wrecking the economy under political pressure. Presidents hate it when Fed chairmen raise interest rates and slow the economy down in an election year, even if doing so might be necessary to stop inflation getting out of control or a dangerous economic bubble forming.

Even worse, putting power over monetary policy in the hands of a politician can lead to them making decisions based on quack economic theory. That risk is particularly high with Trump, someone who believes himself to be an economic genius while in reality understanding little about how the economy functions (see his tariff policy).

Trump appointed Powell in 2018, but he has been criticizing him pretty much ever since. Predictably, the focus of the criticism is that Trump wants Powell to keep interest rates low to stimulate the economy. That’s particularly hard for Powell to do right now because Trump’s trade war is likely to lead to a surge of inflation, and interest rates need to remain high to counter that.

If Trump were to get his way and fire Powell, the result would likely be disastrous. Financial markets - which are already losing faith in the U.S. dollar and treasuries - would take a deep hit. Over the longer term, the move would raise the specter of Trump dictating monetary policy from the Oval Office - something sure to lead the economy to ruin. It might be the final straw that destroys U.S. financial hegemony once and for all.

Trump has one problem. According to the law, he can’t actually fire Powell at will because he is the head of an independent agency. Unfortunately, two cases pending before the Supreme Court might change that.

Conservatives have long argued that the very idea of government agencies over which the president has no control is an absurdity. They want to give the president the ability to hire and fire all agency heads - including Powell - at will. Until now, the Supreme Court hasn’t seemed very sympathetic to that point of view. If they change their mind or if Trump tries to fire Powell anyway, it would unleash another economic apocalypse.

Life on K2-18b?

Astronomers from the University of Cambridge this week issued a sensationalist press release claiming to have found “the strongest evidence yet there is possibly life out there”.

Where is “there” exactly? It’s on K2-18b, an exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf star about 125 light years away.

The researchers claim to have found a chemical compound in its atmosphere which they say can only originate through biological processes - to be specific, by marine phytoplankton and bacteria. These compounds decay quickly once put into an atmosphere. So if they are seen, they must have been created recently.

Other researchers say that the Cambridge team needs to hold its horses. Astronomer Chris Lintott calls the evidence marginal and unconvincing. The compounds might not be there at all, or they might be created by some process we don’t understand.

What’s even worse is that because the planet is 125 light years away, we can never visit it to be sure. Instead, we’ll see duelling teams of scientists spending their lifetimes arguing over what the observations mean, with neither able to reach a definitive conclusion.

As I’ve written before, this is the uncertainty and sadness of the late Space Age.

But what’s even sadder is that the Trump administration wants to slash NASA’s science budget, which makes it possible to even have this conversation at all. The Cambridge scientists used the James Webb telescope, a miracle of modern engineering, to make their discovery. But the administration’s war on science is now threatening the next generation of space telescopes, as well as attempts to bring back soil samples from Mars.

We may never be completely certain that the truth is out there. But we should never stop trying to find it.

Republicans are scared for their lives

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, one of the few Republicans to remain openly skeptical of MAGA, made a worrying admission about political violence in America right now:

“We are all afraid. It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

To be clear, Murkowski isn’t talking about threats of violence from crazed leftists, or terrorists, or some other right-wing boogeyman. She’s talking about threats of violence from supporters of the president.

If you study the historical rise of fascist and authoritarian governments, you often find that violence by private individuals plays a huge role. Trump isn’t sending jackbooted thugs around to Murkowski’s office to threaten her to keep in line. But he doesn’t have to. There are plenty of MAGA fanatics out there willing to do the job for him.