New Fed paper out on the history of central bank independence—how it came to be, what it actually means legally, and what presidents, Fed chairs, and Congress really said about it over the decades. Fair warning: It's a deep dive into historical archives, which means ... it's dense! But it does surface gems like this, from President Eisenhower (who had his own share of disagreements with the Fed but was, if anything, a pragmatic and non-ideological former general) in 1956: "I think the only comment I can logically make is this: the Federal Reserve Board is set up as a separate agency of government. It is not under the authority of the President, and I really personally believe it would be a mistake to make it definitely and directly responsible to the political head of the state."(Nick Timiraos)