Just when you thought it would be a quiet time for the Federal Reserve, with the Fed Open Market Committee set to keep rates stable for a while, President Donald Trump stirs things up again.

I’m referring to his recent nomination of economist Judy Shelton to the Fed’s board of governors. A recent Wall Street Journal story said it could turn on how she explains to lawmakers her heterodox views on policy issues including central-bank independence, interest rates and the gold standard. He also nominated St. Louis Fed economist Christopher Waller.

Shelton, once U.S. envoy to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and an informal Trump advisor to his 2016 campaign, has pushed for returning to some kind of gold standard, a relatively unorthodox view among economists. Shelton appears to be somewhat lukewarm on Fed’s independence from the executive branch and defended Mr. Trump’s call for lower interest rates, reversing her years of calls for higher rates, the WSJ reported. Both these ideas could be hard to get by her Senate confirmation.

She has appeared to flip-flop on rates, being against moves to lower rates when Barack Obama was president but now in favor of Trump’s call for lower rates. Hmmm.

Separately, the U.S. Treasury Dept. last week provide...

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