By Madyson Fitzgerald, Stateline.org

A couple of years ago, Alisa Jno-Charles saw her now 9-year-old daughter watching a YouTube video of several children and their swift ninja moves.

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The video was from Ninja Kidz TV, a YouTube channel that features four young siblings who were raised in a martial arts studio, according to their official website. The channel has about 23.9 million subscribers.

Jno-Charles scrolled through the Ninja Kidz TV videos and noticed that the content featured more than just the kids’ ninja antics: Every single part of their lives was documented, she said.

“It was their first date, and their insecurities about social situations, and major life decisions — like the type of school they should go to — and their birthday parties,” Jno-Charles said. “It was everything. And that didn’t sit well with me.”

Jno-Charles did some more digging into “kidfluencing” on YouTube. She knew, of course, about social media influencers, and that it had become accepted as a legitimate job — for adults. But were there protections, she wondered, “for children who can’t actually make that decision to go into that business themselves?”

An increasing number of state lawmakers are asking the same question.

In the absence of federal regulations, some legislators are pushing to protect child influencers. Many of the measures aim to ensure kids are compensated fairly for their work, by requiring adult account managers — usually their parents — to set aside any earnings in a trust fund the children can access once they are adults. Some of the bills also aim to give children more control over the content they are featured in.

The experience with her daughter prompted Jno-Charles, an assistant professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, to research the fast-growing industry.

In a paper published earlier this year in the Journal of Business Ethics, Jno-Charles and Canadian researcher Daniel Clark concluded that kidfluencing was “a new form of child labor” that can financially exploit kids and violate their privacy, among other harms.

“Kidfluencing represents a uniquely insidious threat because (it’s) seemingly so benign,” Jno-Charles and Clark wrote. “It is prone to willful blindness from the parents, the platforms, the audience, and society at large.”

The risks are especially great, they argue, when kidfluencers are the family’s primary source of income, “obscuring the distinction between the best interests of the child and those of the family.”

But Jno-Charles said many of the state bills focus on financial compensation while ignoring other issues, such as the child’s reputation and whether it will harm their future employment opportunities, relationships and more.

“We’ve seen so many stories come out on families that have exploited and abused their children in a lot of very terrible ways, the least of which is monetarily,” she said. “How do you protect children from those situations? I feel like these regulations are a good start, but it’s not really addressing what I perceive to be the true issues around influence.”

40 million subscribers

Kidfluencers and other content creators make money by hawking products and services to the people who follow them. The job has become increasingly lucrative as companies spend more on social media marketing. Some influencers can earn $10,000 or more for a single post, said Alex Ambrose, a policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonprofit focused on science and technology.

Ryan’s World is largely credited as being the first kidfluencer channel on YouTube. The channel got its start in 2015 with videos featuring 3-year-old Ryan Kaji, who enjoyed unboxing new toys.

Today, Ryan is entering his teen years, and Ryan’s World has nearly 40 million subscribers. The Ryan’s World brand is managed by Sunlight Entertainment, a family-owned production company headed by Ryan’s father. And this year, Ryan Kaji was No. 21 on the Forbes Top Creators list, with $35 million in earnings as of late June.

“It’s so easy for children to just start creating,” Ambrose said. “And with TikTok and Instagram, the ability to edit videos and edit content now is so much easier than it was in the past. You can just start creating with very simple tools that are available to folks.”

Kidfluencers are growing in popularity across nearly every social media platform. While some youths have started accounts on their own, others are managed and monitored by their parents.

Other forms of media already have labor standards. Children who appear on television or in films have contracts that stipulate what they will be paid. Some states, including California, Illinois, Louisiana, New Mexico and New York, have laws mandating that employers of child actors set aside a portion of their earnings — generally 15% — in a trust the actors can access when they become adults.

The first such law was enacted by California in 1939. The Coogan Law was inspired by child actor Jackie Coogan, who played the title role in Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid” and was one of Hollywood’s first child stars. When Coogan became an adult, he discovered that his parents had squandered much of the money he had earned.

States step in

In 2023, Illinois expanded its version of the Coogan Law to include kidfluencers, and California followed suit in 2024 (the laws took effect in 2024 and 2025, respectively).

This year, at least four states — Arkansas, Montana, Utah and Virginia — have amended their child labor laws to mandate trusts and other protections for content creators who are minors. And when Hawaii this year approved its own version of the Coogan Law, it included child influencers in the definition of minors engaged in “theatrical employment.”

The New Jersey General Assembly and the New York Senate also approved child influencer legislation this year, but neither has become law.

Arkansas Republican state Rep. Zack Gramlich, who sponsored the legislation in his state, is a schoolteacher and the father of a 2-year-old and a 9-month-old. Both in the Legislature and at home, Gramlich said, he’s worked toward ensuring kids are protected when they use the internet.

The Arkansas legislation he authored has a trust requirement, but it also includes other protections for child influencers, such as requiring adults to pay minors if they are using them to create content for money. For example, a minor must be paid if they or their likeness appears in at least 30% of the content produced over 30 days, or if the adult earned at least $15,000 in the previous 12 months.

The legislation also prohibits accounts from sharing “any visual depiction of a minor with the intent to sexually gratify or elicit a sexual response in the viewer or any other person.”

This goes beyond existing prohibitions on child pornography to include, for example, parents who dress their child-influencer daughters in bikinis or dance leotards for their followers — some of whom are paying a monthly fee to see that kind of content, according to an investigation by The New York Times.

Gramlich said Google helped him write the legislation. Ambrose, of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said other social media companies have played a similar role in other states, and are establishing new policies for content featuring children.

Instagram last month announced new protections for adult-managed accounts that primarily feature children. This includes placing these accounts into a stricter category to prevent unwanted messages and turning on filters for offensive comments, according to the announcement.

Google and Meta did not grant Stateline requests for interviews.

A handful of legislators pushed back against the bill, Gramlich said, because they were concerned about putting too much responsibility on the parents. But when a parent is making an additional $15,000 a year by posting videos of their children, he said, there must be rules.

“In some ways, this is an extension of child labor protections,” Gramlich said. “We’re at the point where kids aren’t in the mines anymore, but it looks like they’re going to be on the internet. But now, their parents may be making money off their efforts, and they never get to see it.”

Social media audiences do not see the production behind online content, Gramlich said. These audiences are only seeing the finished product. And younger kids may not realize that their work is being used for money and will forever exist online, he said.

“If you’re anything like me, you’ve been told for the last 15 years that everything you put on the internet is there forever,” Gramlich said. “But can a child really understand what that means?”

The Utah legislation also goes beyond trusts. Utah Democratic state Rep. Doug Owens, the House sponsor of the bill, wanted to make sure that child influencers had the right to delete their content once they became adults. His legislation, which was signed into law by Republican Gov. Spencer Cox in March, requires that social media companies create a process for people who want their content removed or edited.

Before the legislation was drafted, two people reached out to Owens asking him to propose protections for child actors and influencers. One was a constituent — a child actor who had appeared in traditional television commercials.

The second, he said, was Kevin Franke, the ex-husband of former YouTube family vlogger Ruby Franke. In 2023, the popular YouTube star was arrested after her 12-year-old son, with duct tape stuck to his ankles and wrists, ran to a neighbor’s house and asked for food and water. She was later convicted on child abuse charges and sentenced to up to 30 years in prison.

Recent docuseries on Netflix and Hulu have revealed the ways in which kidfluencing can lead to children experiencing peer pressure, manipulation, child abuse and, in the case of the Franke family, torture.

Both the child actor and Kevin Franke said children in the entertainment industry — including kidfluencers — should have adults who are looking out for them, Owens said.

“I think social media is just an obvious place where kids need some protection,” he said.

But most state legislatures remain focused on broader social media concerns, such as age restrictions, said Georgia Democratic state Rep. Kim Schofield, who has sponsored a child influencer bill in her state.

In February, Schofield introduced a measure that would mandate trusts for child influencers. Her bill also would restrict children’s work schedules: A child between the ages of 9 and 16, for instance, would be barred from working more than five hours a day.

“I’m so excited to see that these kids are just so talented,” Schofield said. “They have a means to broaden and expand an endless universe online — I love that I get to see that. But if you’re making so much money and making the family rich, I want to make sure that you’re getting a piece of the pie.”

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By KATIE WORKMAN, Associated Press

In the summer heat, we find ourselves drawn to that glorious section of the drinks menu that promises relief in the form of a cold, creamy, brain-freezing indulgence. But ordering a frozen drink looks different in different parts of the U.S., and in different restaurants and ice cream shops.

So, what is the difference between a milkshake, a malt, a frappe or maybe even a concrete?

Geography, tradition and local lingo all play a role in how frozen drinks are made and what they’re called.

Let’s break it down one strawful (or spoonful) at a time.

Milkshakes

Perhaps the most iconic of the bunch, the milkshake is typically a blend of ice cream and milk, blended until smooth and sippable. It’s simple and sweet. The ice cream usually forms the base flavor of the drink, and then other flavorings are involved, from syrups to extracts to fresh fruit.

At the Lexington Candy Shop, a 100-year-old luncheonette with an old-fashioned soda fountain on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, vanilla is the most popular milkshake — about 60% of all shakes ordered. That’s according to John Philis, who co-owns the shop with Bob Karcher, and whose grandfather, Soterios Philis, opened it in 1925.

Their next most popular flavors are chocolate, coffee and strawberry, Philis said. Lexington Candy uses homemade syrups, he says, which give the shakes “a nice wow.”

Other fan favorites at the shop include the classic black and white (vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrups) and the Broadway (chocolate syrup with coffee ice cream). In the summer, there are peach shakes.

Malts

A malt is essentially a milkshake with a scoop of malted milk powder thrown in. Malted milk powder is an old-fashioned flavoring that combines malted barley, wheat flour (caution to the gluten-free crowd) and evaporated milk. It gives the drink that distinct toasted, almost nutty flavor that transports you mentally to a 1950s diner or drive-in.

Fun fact: Malted milk powder was originally created as a nutrition booster, mostly for babies, but it found its home behind the counter of ice cream shops and luncheonettes. It adds slightly richer, old-school vibes to shakes and other frozen drinks.

There are also plenty of frozen blended drinks made with frozen yogurt instead of ice cream; these are sometimes known as fro-yo shakes.

Frappes

“Frappe” might mean different things to different people, depending on where they’re from. In New England, particularly Massachusetts, a frappe is what most of us would call a milkshake, made with milk, ice cream and usually some other flavorings.

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In Massachusetts, you will hear this drink called “frap” (rhymes with “nap”), but believe me when I say there is no consensus on the correct pronunciation of the word. Sometimes a frappe from this region might simply be flavored cold milk, no ice cream involved.

There is also a genre of frappes associated with coffee-blended drinks, popularized by chains like Starbucks. Think icy, blended lattes, often topped with whipped cream. These are pronounced “frap-pays.”

Frosteds

Philis says that in New York City and other regions, a shake used to be known as a “frosted.”

“When someone comes in and orders a ‘frosted,’ I like this person,” Philis declares.

When McDonald’s and other fast-food chains started calling shakes “shakes,” the world followed suit, and the word “frosted” went out of fashion.

A frosted float, Philis explains, is a milkshake with an extra scoop of ice cream floating on top. Talk about gilding the lily!

Concretes

Then we have the concrete, an ultra-thick, creamy frozen dessert so dense that a spoon can stand upright in it. This is essentially frozen custard blended with mix-ins like candy, cookies or fruit, but no milk is added. It’s more of a scoopable treat than a slurpable one.

Concretes are popular where frozen custard is popular — mostly in the Midwest. Frozen custard has significantly less air in it than most ice cream, and a required 1.4% of egg yolks, which gives it its signature richness.

The concrete was invented at a frozen custard shop called Ted Drewes in St. Louis. If you buy one there, the server will hand it to you upside down, saying, “Here’s your concrete,” and it won’t fall out.

Travis Dillon (whose wife, Christy, is founder Ted Drewes’ granddaughter) gave this origin story: In the 1950s, a kid named Steve Gamir used to come in and ask the guy behind the counter for “the thickest shake you can make.” Employees started leaving the milk out of Gamir’s shakes, just running the custard through the machine, resulting in a shake that requires a spoon, not a straw.

Dillon says chocolate is their most popular flavor, then chocolate chip, strawberry and Heath Bar, but adds that there are lots of other flavors to explore, including a malted chocolate concrete — the best of two frozen-drink worlds!

Floats

Ice cream floats are the fizzy cousins of shakes. A scoop of ice cream (usually vanilla) is plopped into a glass of soda (usually root beer or cola, occasionally orange soda or a lemon-lime like Sprite) to create a frothy, sweet, bubbly concoction. Floats can be nostalgic for some folks.

Lexington Candy remains old-fashioned with their floats, making the sodas to order with syrup, stirring by hand, then adding the ice cream. In some areas of the country, you might hear a root-beer float referred to as a “brown cow.”

Ice cream sodas

Like floats, ice cream sodas are not made in a blender. Philis says his are made with the syrup of your choice, coffee, half-and-half, plus seltzer. Then add a scoop of ice cream. He says usually the syrup and the ice cream are the same flavor, but people also like to mix and match.

Smoothies

Finally a word about smoothies, the supposedly more health-conscious frozen treat. Smoothies are traditionally made with fruit, yogurt, juice and sometimes ice. Sometimes, the fruit is frozen before it is blended into the drink. Smoothies are designed to feel virtuous, but they can still pack plenty of sugar, calories and richness, depending on the ingredients. For instance, if you see a peanut butter-chocolate-banana smoothie, you may realize quickly that this is more about flavor than health.

So the only question is: Is there enough time left in the summer to try the whole lexicon of frozen creamy drinks? Believe in yourself. I believe in you.

Katie Workman writes regularly about food for The Associated Press. She has written two cookbooks focused on family-friendly cooking, “Dinner Solved!” and “The Mom 100 Cookbook.” She blogs at https://themom100.com/. She can be reached at Katie@themom100.com.

For more AP food stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/recipes

BAUDETTE, Minn. – It was another smoky day in the border country, but on this early August afternoon, the haze above didn’t matter – the focus lurked somewhere beneath the surface of the Rainy River.

For Kevin Hinrichs of Baudette and two 13-year-olds – son Jeffrey and nephew Alex Vadner, who was visiting from Wanamingo, Minn. – the plan was both simple and relaxing: Drop anchor, spend a few hours on the river and soak some bait in hopes of enticing a lake sturgeon or two into biting.

In between, there’d be ample opportunity to shoot the breeze, ponder the meaning of life and burn through nightcrawlers and frozen shiners while catching a mixed bag of fish that might include walleyes, saugers, redhorse, mooneyes and suckers.

This time of year on the Rainy River, you never know what you’re going to catch. Such is life when you run a sturgeon camp and target the underwater giants at every opportunity, whether for fun with a couple of avid 13-year-olds, or as a border country sturgeon guide.

“Never not fishing” is Hinrichs’ motto and it’s not an exaggeration. He calls his 24-foot pontoon the “Warship,” saying that doing battle with a big sturgeon is like a war.

That’s not an exaggeration, either.

Moving north

Hinrichs and his wife, Jennifer, bought the Royal Dutchman Resort on the Rainy River east of Baudette in October 2020 in the teeth of the COVID-19 pandemic.

They’d looked at several cabins over the years in the border country, thinking they’d move north and find jobs, Hinrichs recalls, but found nothing to their liking until they looked at the Royal Dutchman.

So it was that Hinrichs left his job managing a rock pit – he drove a payloader, loaded semis and dump trucks – and moved the family north from Zumbrota, Minn.

“We didn’t think – that was the biggest thing,” Hinrichs said. “We saw it. We liked it. We decided to buy it. I’ll tell you this – of the people who would have cold feet, I was the one who was like, ‘Are we sure this is what we want to do?’ My wife was the one who said, ‘Yes, this is what we’re going to do.’”

And so he became “The Dutchman” and she became “The Duchess.” In addition to son Jeff, they have a daughter, Vera, who’ll be 15 in September.

“If the world was going to be coming to an end (because of COVID), I might as well be rocking a resort,” Hinrichs said. “And it turned out, as we see, the world didn’t end. And actually, business that first year was probably the best that we ever had.”

The Sturgeon King reign begins

Given its location on the Rainy River, the Royal Dutchman historically attracted sturgeon anglers – especially in the spring and fall, when the biggest fish are caught – but previous owners didn’t market the place as a “sturgeon resort,” Hinrichs says.

Kevin Hinrichs — aka “The Dutchman” — of Baudette, Minn., calls his 24-foot pontoon boat the “Dutchman’s Warship.” It’s a fitting name, Hinrichs says, because tangling with a big Rainy River sturgeon can be a real war. Hinrichs, who lays claim to the unofficial title of “Sturgeon King,” spends a lot of time guiding and fishing for the prehistoric fish. (Brad Dokken / Forum News Service)

As new owners, Hinrichs and his wife decided to change that.

“Being a new guy, a new kid on the block, I saw it as an opportunity,” he said. “I actually talked to a guy that I met up here, and he’s like, there is no Sturgeon King – everybody’s all walleye, walleye, walleye, walleye – and he says, ‘You could be that guy.’

“I sat and I looked at our location and where we were and how we could operate, and I thought – you know what, he’s right, I am going to be the Sturgeon King.”

Before buying the resort, Hinrichs says, the only sturgeon he’d ever caught was a small one he pulled through the ice on Lake Pepin in southeast Minnesota.

“I had a lot of fishing to do to get the credibility that it takes to be amongst the crowd, so that’s what I do,” Hinrichs said. “When I say ‘Never not fishing,’ I mean it.”

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His posts on the Royal Dutchman Resort Facebook page – part fishing report, part Northwoods philosophy – also have attracted a following. Hinrichs often ends his posts with, “For those about to fish, we salute you,” a tribute to the 1981 album “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)” by AC/DC, one of his favorite bands.

People fishing with him have caught sturgeon over 70 inches during the prime spring months.

“The memories that you make – that is what catching sturgeon is really about,” Hinrichs said. “Most often, I’m part of a life-lasting memory that you’re never going to forget because it’s often going to be the biggest fish you’re ever going to catch in your life.”

Summer sturgeon

Sturgeon fishing generally isn’t a numbers game, and the fish that come onboard the Warship in the summer tend to run smaller than the behemoths that cruise the river in the spring to spawn in the Rainy and its tributaries.

Kevin Hinrichs nets a small sturgeon for his son, Jeffrey, on Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, during a few hours of fishing on the Rainy River near Baudette, Minn. (Brad Dokken / Forum News Service)

Having a gift for gab definitely helps pass the time between bites, Hinrichs says.

“The reality of sturgeon fishing when you become a sturgeon guide, you realize that you have to have good people skills because it’s a lot of sitting around and waiting,” Hinrichs said. “If you can’t keep the morale and the attitude up there, people are going to want to leave. They’re going to want to go, ‘Let’s just call it a day, they’re not biting.’ When you know at some point in your mind, they’re going to open up and bite if I can keep them in my boat long enough.”

Summer tends to be the season of the “keeper” sturgeon, Hinrichs says, those 45- to 50-inch fish (or over 75 inches) the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources allows anglers to keep during limited harvest seasons in the spring and fall if they buy a special $5 tag.

The harvest limit is one per calendar year.

“Everybody thinks sturgeon are only here in the river in the spring, and they’re very mistaken,” Hinrichs said. “I’ve had (summer) trips where we’ve gone out and caught five or six fish over 55 inches, with a 69¾-incher topping the list as the big one.”

Typically, Hinrichs averages five to 15 sturgeon trips a month in the summer – it runs in spurts, he says – though he did “48 or 50 trips” in 45 days earlier this year between six-hour morning and evening excursions.

“I stacked a lot of trips in a short little bit of time,” he said.

Walleyes, of course, are a draw in the spring and again in the fall, but “the tug is the drug” when it comes to sturgeon fishing, Hinrichs says.

“I always tell people the sturgeon is something that when you hook up, it’s something that you can’t explain – it can only be felt,” he said. “Even that 50-inch fish, you think you’ve got the biggest, baddest fish of your life on (the line), which you do. As far as freshwater fish in the United States of America, you’re not going to fight a much badder fish when it comes to the fight, than a sturgeon.”

Enjoyable evening

There’d be no big sturgeon – the true “dinos,” as Hinrichs calls them – brought to the Warship on this hazy August afternoon, but a number of large fish jumped nearby, as if taunting us. Chris Dickerson of Boone, Miss., who was staying at the resort, landed a 59-incher at dusk within view of camp as Hinrichs steered the Warship back to the dock.

Chris Dickerson of Boone, Miss., landed this 59-inch sturgeon Friday evening, Aug. 1, 2025, on the Rainy River east of Baudette, Minn., within view of the Royal Dutchman Resort. Kevin Hinrichs, owner of the Royal Dutchman Resort, was fishing nearby in the 24-foot pontoon he calls the “Warship” when Dickerson tied into the fish. (Courtesy photo via Forum News Service)

Jeff Hinrichs and Alex Vadner, the 13-year-olds onboard, reeled in enough walleyes and saugers for a fish fry back at camp, along with several redhorse, a common sucker and a half-dozen “razor blades,” small sturgeon so-called for their sharp scutes, the bony plates that protect their skin.

With some coaching from the Dutchman, Vadner – reluctant at first – even held a sturgeon for a photo; the smile on his face was almost as big as the fish.

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We’d go through 5 dozen nightcrawlers, and if the boys’ enthusiasm was any indication – they didn’t want to go in – the future of fishing is in good hands.

Fun was had, memories were made.

So it went during a fine few hours on the Rainy River.

“You don’t lack for action (in the summer),” Hinrichs said. “And you never know. You’re going to catch a variety of fish. Definitely a little taste of the exotic that Lake of the Woods and Rainy River has to offer, with a multitude of fish that you can catch.”

In the media, the U.S. Federal Reserve is under siege. President Donald Trump constantly threatens to fire Chair Jerome Powell. Others hurl criticism in hopes of becoming Powell’s successor. Two Fed governors opposed last week’s decision to hold interest rates steady, the first multiple dissent since 1993.

Don’t be fooled by the drama. In terms of how the Fed manages the economy, it’s mostly a tempest in a teapot.

Trump has very little leverage over Powell. The Supreme Court has confirmed that the chair can’t be dismissed except “for cause” — a threshold that the renovation-cost overruns the president has cited don’t meet. Powell intends to serve out his term to May 2026 and possibly stay on further as a governor. He, not Trump, is in control of the Fed.

Whoever succeeds Powell might not obey Trump once in office. If pressed to lower interest rates in clear breach of the Fed’s mandate, the chair might refuse — and in any case would have to convince the policy-making committee. Trump probably can’t stack the FOMC: I’d be surprised if he gets the opportunity to appoint more than two or three members during this presidential term.

The double dissent from governors Michelle Bowman and Christopher Waller exaggerate the split within the Fed. All 19 members of the policy-making Federal Open Market Committee expect to cut interest rates over the next few years, according to their own economic projections from June. They differ only on timing and magnitude. The dissents should be discounted, given the “coincidence” that they’re from the only two Trump-appointed members.

The Fed chair’s sway over the FOMC is subtle and multi-faceted. The chair sets meeting agendas, chooses the topics (but not the conclusions) of the special staff analyses considered at meetings, sets committee assignments for the Federal Reserve Board and controls the Board’s staff resources. When monetary policy differences are modest, members have ample reason to stay on the chair’s good side. The more expertise and credibility the chair has, the more they’ll be willing to defer. During the dotcom boom of the 1990s, for example, they abided by Chairman Alan Greenspan’s judgment that productivity growth would keep inflation in check, because they trusted in his experience as an economic forecaster.

FOMC voters typically do not dissent over differences of timing and magnitude when they agree with the broad direction of monetary policy. More than one or two dissents tends to indicate significant disagreement and can threaten the chair’s influence both within the committee and beyond. Rarely would a Fed chair try to force a decision when strongly opposed by more than 2 or 3 members — though this depends on the motivations of the dissenters. I see last week’s dual dissents, for example, as a special case reflecting Waller’s desire to succeed Powell and Bowman’s “thank you” to Trump for appointing her as the Fed’s vice chair for supervision. I doubt they’ve diminished Powell’s standing.

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I’ve been amply critical of the Fed — for its flawed 2020 monetary policy framework and for failing to properly consider the costs and benefits of quantitative easing, among other things. But I think the attacks from Powell’s potential successors go too far.

Accusations of mission creep overstate the evidence: The Fed’s climate change policy, for example, has remained entirely within its core financial-stability mission, focusing on how natural disasters might precipitate property losses and strand assets. The notion of “breaking some heads” to achieve “regime change” is downright mean-spirited, given the commitment of Fed officials and staff to do whatever is needed in terms of time, effort, and creativity to achieve the central bank’s objectives (a commitment that I witnessed as president of the New York Fed).

The Fed’s achievements in stabilizing markets during the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid pandemic, and in bringing down inflation while avoiding recession in recent years, deserve praise rather than disparagement. It’ll take a lot more than the latest wave of attacks to undermine the independence crucial to that record.

Bill Dudley is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he is a nonexecutive director at Swiss Bank UBS and a member of Coinbase Global’s advisory council.