Let me tell you something about history, it’s not sentimental. It doesn’t hand out gold stars because you smiled nice for the cameras or gave calm, measured press conferences. History is a brutal scorekeeper. And when it finally catches up with Jerome Powell, the verdict’s gonna be ugly. The media may dress him up as a “steady hand” or a “pragmatic leader who wasn’t an economist.” Spare me. Powell’s legacy will be one of the most damaging, reactive, and politically pliant in Federal Reserve history. His time in that chair has been defined not by courage or vision, but by delay, political winds, and mistakes so big they’ve warped markets, crushed credibility, and widened the canyon between Wall Street’s champagne towers and Main Street’s cracked sidewalks. The Case of the Missing Backbone From day one, Powell had a chance to show some guts, and he flinched. The late 2010s were a gift-wrapped opportunity. The economy was roaring, unemployment was at record lows, and the stock market was printing all-time highs like it was on autopilot. That’s when a real leader tightens the screws, raises rates, reins in speculation, and gets ahead of inflation. But Powell? He sat on his hands. Inflationary pressure was building under the surface, but he didn’t want to upset the markets, or, God forbid, get political heat. By the time inflation exploded to 40-year highs in 2021 and 2022, it was too late. And when he did finally act, he slammed the brakes so hard the economy nearly went through the windshield. Waiting too long, then overcorrecting, that’s not monetary strategy. That’s cowardice dressed up as caution. The “Powell Put” , Wall Street’s Favorite Drug Dealer Ever heard of the “Greenspan Put”? Back in the day, traders knew Alan Greenspan would rescue the market with cheap money anytime it sneezed. Powell took that playbook, added turbo, and turned it into the “Powell Put.” In 2018, he briefly raised rates and trimmed the Fed’s bloated balance sheet. The market had a fit. And what did Powell do? He folded. By early 2019, he was reversing course under pressure from Wall Street, and from then-President Donald Trump.