{"text":[[{"start":10.05,"text":"Former Bank of England governor Mervyn King and crypto investor Marc Andreessen are among Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh’s picks to help modernise the US central bank."}],[{"start":20.450000000000003,"text":"Warsh, who campaigned for the role of Fed chair on a ticket of regime change, on Thursday unveiled the rosters for five task forces that he said would “sharpen” the world’s most important financial institution."}],[{"start":32.800000000000004,"text":"King and Andreessen, co-founder of Silicon Valley investment group Andreessen Horowitz, were joined in the list by Raghuram Rajan, the former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, and Nobel laureate Thomas Sargent."}],[{"start":45.85000000000001,"text":"“The US economy has changed significantly over the last generation, and never more so than right now,” Warsh said on Thursday. “I am honoured that the best minds from a range of disciplines have agreed to work with us to sharpen our performance as an institution.”"}],[{"start":62.30000000000001,"text":"King ran the BoE from 2003 to 2013, including through the global financial crisis. Andreessen, a Trump ally, has been a prominent proponent of digital currencies."}],[{"start":73.85000000000001,"text":"Warsh, who was a Fed governor from 2006 until 2011, has spent much of his time criticising the central bank since leaving it and was nominated as chair by US President Donald Trump. "}],[{"start":85.45,"text":"Warsh wants the Fed to rejig its communications with investors, shrink its $7tn balance sheet, and modernise its data collection and thinking on inflation."}],[{"start":95.2,"text":"He said in testimony to the Senate banking committee that he believes the US central bank should target a trimmed mean measure of inflation that lops off big changes in the prices of certain products. "}],[{"start":106.4,"text":"He also believes the US is on the cusp of an AI-induced productivity boom that will give the Fed room to cut borrowing costs without stoking inflation."}],[{"start":114.9,"text":"Many other US rate-setters dispute Warsh’s view and believe that investment in data centres and demand for AI-associated products is leading to higher prices."}],[{"start":125.25,"text":"The task forces will be supported by Fed staff and will set the reform agenda for the Warsh-era Fed in five areas: communications, the balance sheet, modernisation of data collection, productivity in the AI era and inflation frameworks."}],[{"start":140.7,"text":"Peter Fisher, a former New York Fed official who is now at the University of Washington, and Arminio Fraga, former head of Brazil’s central bank, will co-head the communications panel with King. "}],[{"start":151.79999999999998,"text":"Rajan will co-chair the balance-sheet task force with two Harvard professors — Karen Dynan and Jeremy Stein. "}],[{"start":159.64999999999998,"text":"The data task force will feature former Walmart chief executive Doug McMillon, Harvard professor Raj Chetty and Kevin Murphy from the University of Chicago. "}],[{"start":170.04999999999998,"text":"Andreessen will chair the productivity panel with Charles Jones at Stanford and Asha Sharma, a top Microsoft executive."}],[{"start":177.39999999999998,"text":"Harvard’s Greg Mankiw and Bill White, formerly of the Bank for International Settlements, will review the central bank’s inflation frameworks alongside Sargent. "}],[{"start":186.59999999999997,"text":"“These are impressive external figures, and while the choices do skew to people who differ at least to some degree from current Fed orthodoxy, they are all credible and will be taken seriously by the market, current Fed policymakers and staff,” said Krishna Guha, vice-chair at Evercore ISI. "}],[{"start":204.79999999999995,"text":"Warsh announced the task forces at his first press conference as Fed chair and said he expects them to report back on their findings to the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee by the end of the year."}],[{"start":224.24999999999997,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1783644253_4244.mp3"}