You’re reading The Financial Page , John Cassidy’s weekly column on economics and politics.

After weeks of anticipation on Wall Street and elsewhere, policymakers at the Federal Reserve, which is one of the few remaining independent agencies that hasn’t yet fallen under the control of Donald Trump , will meet in the coming days to set a key interest rate. Trump has recently renewed his attacks on Jerome Powell , the chair of the Fed, following a sharp slowdown in job growth throughout the summer. He has also demanded a bigger rate cut than Powell and his colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee (F.O.M.C.), which holds eight scheduled meetings each year to determine monetary policy, are likely to deliver, though that is the least of his efforts to exert control over the cent

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