In the United States, where the economy is doing relatively well by current global measures, a conservative president, Donald Trump, is putting pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates and re-introduce Quantitative Easing (QE). This, because he feels the current monetary policy stance of the Fed is putting brakes on the economy.
In South Africa, where the economy is performing very poorly by many measures: extremely high unemployment, economic growth anemic, high levels of poverty, etc. the progressive president, Cyril Ramaphosa, is reluctant to apply pressure or persuasion on the Reserve Bank to lower interest rates. This, because of a fear that financial markets will perceive this as interference with the mandate of the SARB.
At a pure economic level, President Trump is correct and President Ramaphosa wrong and weak. The South African economy would do with a boost to consumption spending and investment, and the current misguided monetary policy stance of the SARB is putting a constraint on both.
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