No one likes high interest rates on credit cards and loans, but artificially lowering interest rates via executive power is not a solution.

With a pair of moves over the weekend, President Donald Trump signaled his intention to bully various institutions into providing lower interest rates for American consumers and the federal government.

First, Trump called for capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent in a Truth Social post on Friday. That was swiftly followed by news that the Justice Department was investigating Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for misleading Congress about the cost of a renovation project—a move that seems like the most blatant yet by the administration to compel Powell to lower interest rates in accordance with Trump's wishes or resign his post.

You might think of this as Trump's war on high interest rates. Like other, less metaphorical conflicts that the president has started in recent weeks, this one has been launched with little regard for its legality or the possible consequences. What Trump perceives as a pincer movement of populist policies seems likely to backfire in ways that could make credit more difficult to obtain and otherwise destabilize the economy.

...read more at reason.com