AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco J ohn Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, will reportedly be handed the job at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It may seem like a lateral move, but it’s definitely a promotion. New York Fed presidents have a permanent seat on the interest-rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, making them the eighth Fed governor in all respects. The New York Fed also serves as the first line of defense against Wall Street’s powerful banking sector. And long-suffering Puerto Rico sits in the New York Fed’s district. For all these reasons, it’s one of the most important economic policymaking positions in the nation. The vital nature of the appointment makes the outcome—and more important, the process behind it—so disappointing. While serving at the San Francisco Fed, Williams failed to detect the tsunami of scandal and fraud at Wells Fargo—and now will be rewarded...

(AP Photo/Richard Drew) W hile the media pores over a Trump budget proposal that died before even getting to Congress , another administration document might deserve more scrutiny. Last Friday, the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) released its blueprint for making prescription drugs more affordable. And one of the biggest proposals would break up the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) industry, a small group of middlemen that administers drug benefits in health plans, providing dubious assistance on lowering prices while extracting outsized profits. It may strike you as surprising that an administration so devoted to doing the bidding of big business would call for one of the largest and most profitable industries in America to be dismantled. But in context it makes a lot of sense. This report on lowering drug prices scrupulously avoids nearly everything that would lower the pharmaceutical industry’s profits. And drug companies have been pointing to pharmacy benefit managers as a source...