WAIT, YOU MEAN SYCOPHANCY IS A POOR SUBSTITUTE FOR COMPETENCE?:

Unlike the seasoned economists and Wall Street players who dealt with the 2008 financial panic such as Lawrence H. Summers, Timothy F. Geithner and Ben Bernanke, or the 1999 "Committee to Save the World" that quelled the Asian financial crisis, today's top policymakers have less expertise steering the government through a crisis.

"There is not any sense yet of a coherent American economic strategy for responding to what's clearly a very important set of developments," said Summers, a former treasury secretary who played a key role in financial crises in the Clinton and Obama administrations. "From the outside, things seem amateurish in terms of international coordination, cooperation with international financial institutions, and the presentation of a joint front by treasury and the Fed."

During the Asian financial crisis, Summers said, it was not unusual for the Treasury to talk to Fed Chair Alan Greenspan multiple times a day along with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Today there is a more awkward relationship among the key players. Trump distrusts many global institutions, and he frequently criticizes Powell on Twitter, even calling him an "enemy" in August. These repeated attacks on the Fed alarm many who have steered the economy in the past.

"Throughout both the Bush and Obama administrations, both the president and the treasury secretary left monetary policy alone," said Bernanke, a former Fed chair who led the central bank during the 2008 financial crisis. "It's worrisome that the president seems to think cutting interest rates is the first line of defense."

Tweet   @brothersjudd