11 Takeaways from Danielle Dimartino Booth

Deconstruction and discovery are often key processes designers use to achieve a desired goal, whether that’s stripping a building down to the studs to correct the underlying framework or critically analyzing a system’s infrastructure to update and upgrade. Through this process, we creatively discern the most effective means possible to make positive change and purposeful transformation.
Danielle DiMartino Booth, financial expert and author of Fed Up: An Insider’s Take on Why the Federal Reserve is Bad for America, called upon attendees of TREC’s most recent Bank of Texas Speaker Series presented by The Dallas Morning News to enact these same key processes of deconstruction and discovery. She decreed we take a critical, purposeful and pragmatic look at Congress’s underlying framework of the Federal Reserve banking system. She demanded  we deconstruct our nation’s economic policies to discover new avenues for progressive transformation. She delivered an address prompting our business leaders in the real estate industry to be a voice in the financial institution around which our economy revolves.
Tugging at our economic, political, social, and financial convictions, she brought to our attention 11 key issues in dire need of reform:

1. The need for the Federal Reserve to focus solely on price stability and inflation.
2. The need to deconcentrate the power base away from Washington D.C. and New York.
3. The need to reestablish the map of districts to reflect the economic force of the West.
4. The need to bring in business leaders with pragmatic knowledge and action.
5. The need to remove the theoretical constructs of economists, lawyers and PH.Ds.
6. The need for permanent monetary policy voting rights to all district bank presidents.
7. The need to set reasonable term limits for the Federal Reserve Board.
8. The need to allow the market to set interest rates through uninhibited price discovery.
9. The need to allow the business cycle to return to being cyclical.
10. The need to leave job creation in the private sector.
11. The need to fix the Fed.

As an architect, I am admittedly less fluent in economic and financial prose, yet DiMartino Booth raised important questions particularly relevant to our industry at this point in the cycle. I encourage us all to heed her warning and educate ourselves. Knowledge will equip us to act as wise leaders and stewards of our nation’s capital markets and economic growth patterns.
Cole Henson is an architect at GFF Architects in Dallas and is on TREC’s Programs Committee as well as Vice President of the CSI Dallas Chapter. A recent recipient of the 2017 Corenet CRE Young Leader Award for excellence in real estate, he is passionate about design innovation, industry outreach, future technologies, and mentorship for young professionals.