Jerome Hayden "Jay" Powell (born February 4, 1953) is an American investment banker and lawyer serving since 2018 as the 16th chair of the Federal Reserve.

[12] Time said the scale and manner of Powell's actions had "changed the Fed forever"[13] and shared concerns that he had conditioned Wall Street to unsustainable levels of monetary stimulus to artificially support high asset prices.

[23] He received a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Princeton University in 1975, where his senior thesis was titled "South Africa: Forces for Change".

He left in 1995 after the bank suffered reputational damage when some complex derivative transactions caused large losses for major corporate clients.

[34] In 2008, Powell became a managing partner of the Global Environment Fund, a private equity and venture capital firm that invests in sustainable energy.

[39] In a July 2017 speech, Powell said that in regard to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the status quo is "unacceptable" and that the current situation "may feel comfortable, but it is also unsustainable".

He warned that "the next few years may present our last best chance" to "address the ultimate status of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac" and avoid "repeating the mistakes of the past".

Powell expressed concerns that, in the current situation, the government is responsible for mortgage defaults and that lending standards were too rigid, noting that these can be solved by encouraging "ample amounts of private capital to support housing finance activities".

[40] In an October 2017 speech, Powell stated that higher capital and liquidity requirements and stress tests from the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act have made the financial system safer and must be preserved.

[37] On November 2, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Powell to serve as the chair of the Federal Reserve, replacing Janet Yellen at the helm of the central bank.

[45][46] This tight policy drew public criticism from President Trump, who expressed second thoughts about nominating Powell and said that the chair was too enthusiastic about raising rates.

[54] Where Bernanke-era quantitative was conducted through outright purchases of assets, Powell's expansion operates through overnight repurchase agreements (repos) where the seller has the option to reverse the transaction.

The Fed's primary dealers and other banks use the repo facilities to sell Treasury and agency securities in exchange for credit to supplement their cash on hand.

[60] Powell's actions earned him bipartisan praise,[61][8] including from Trump, who told Fox News that he was "very happy with his performance" and that "over the last period of six months, he's really stepped up to the plate".

[76] In January 2021, Edward Luce of the Financial Times warned that the Fed's use of asset purchases, and the resultant widening of wealth inequality, could lead to political and social instability in the United States, saying: "The majority of people are suffering amid a Great Gatsby-style boom at the top".

[77] Powell's expansion of credit through repo contracts, seen as a new "Greenspan put,"[55][76] created large profits for Wall Street investment banks.

[66][84][72] In July 2020, CNBC host Jim Cramer said, "I'm sick and tired of hearing that we're in a bubble, that Powell's overinflating the price of stocks by printing money to keep the economy moving".

And for that, you may thank the Federal Reserve.The asset price boom during the pandemic attracted a generation of young investors who explicitly credited Powell for promoting froth in financial markets.

Gathering in online communities like Reddit's r/wallstreetbets board, they discussed high-risk trades and shared memes that depicted "J-Pow" using the Fed's money printer to flood the economy.

[107][108] In response to widespread high inflation readings Jerome Powell has indicated an increase in the speed of tapering asset purchases, namely up to $30 billion per month.

[109][110] In Jerome Powell's confirmation hearing in 2022 he described inflation as being a "severe threat" to the US economic recovery due to "higher costs of essentials like food, housing and transportation".

In August 2021, progressive Democrats, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, called on President Joe Biden to replace Powell, criticizing him for failing to "mitigate the risk climate change poses to our financial system".

[114][115] In September 2021, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, criticized Powell for his financial regulation track record and called him a "dangerous man to head up the Fed.

[122] Powell has served on the boards of charitable and educational institutions including DC Prep, a public charter school, the Bendheim Center for Finance at Princeton University, and The Nature Conservancy.

He was also a founder of the Center City Consortium, a group of 16 parochial schools in the poorest areas of Washington, D.C.[33] Powell is a registered Republican and a longtime fan of American rock band the Grateful Dead.