The Economic Situation: June 2025

1. Getting Started

Now, after more than three months of riding the Trump administration’s golden-age roller coaster with wind in our hair and seatbelts fastened, we’ve not seen streets paved with gold. But we have seen massive changes. To paraphrase Elvis: “We’re all shook up.”

Driven largely by abrupt policy changes involving tariffs and federal-government layoffs, the Department of Commerce’s first estimate for first quarter 2025 real GDP growth shows the economy losing ground for the first time in three years. Real GDP shrank by 0.3 percent compared to 2.4 percent growth in the fourth quarter. There was an import surge in anticipation of tariffs, as US firms slowed domestic production to stock up on foreign goods. And in national income accounting, imports subtract from GDP. Equally troublesome, perhaps, is that the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation metric, the personal consumption expenditure, or PCE, index, showed 3.6 percent growth compared to the fourth quarter’s 2.4 percent. Put simply, we have a strange form of policy-driven stagflation. It was engineered deliberately and purposefully by our elected leaders. Let’s hope it is temporary.  

Thousands of federal workers have been laid off with more in the works, and more than 100,000 immigrants have been deported. Federal agencies have been vacated, federal funding to major universities cut, and the Fed chair’s job security threatened by the president. Most crucial for the economic situation are the on-again, off-again tariffs, imposed worldwide on friend and foe alike, along with the White House’s ongoing challenges to due process and habeas corpus.  

A new capitalism

We are witnessing the rise of state-directed capitalism. With a national emergency declared, and in an avowed effort to remake government and rebalance the world economy, the White House picks winners and losers, coordinates industry activities, and attempts to manage a trade war that is disrupting markets worldwide and raising serious questions about America’s creditworthiness. Indeed, all three bond-rating agencies have now reduced the nation’s pristine rating from AAA to AA. The United States no longer represents the gold standard for newly issued debt.

It is too early to tell whether the effort to remake the government and economy will lead to smaller deficits, less debt, a stronger economy, and a more effective federal government. Indeed, we may not have a final reckoning for a year or two. An appropriate saying goes, “It may all come out in the wash, but it is hell going through the wringer.”

Will the benefits from all this, however they are measured, outweigh the costs? History is replete with frustrated efforts to manage complex economies from the top down. The record isn’t pretty. Whether it’s World War II price controls, airline regulation by the Civil Aeronautics Board, government management of energy markets after the 1970s oil embargoes, or Soviet central planning, central authorities cannot gather enough shifting information to balance supply and demand. There are too many moving parts, and they move constantly. 

Unlike free-market capitalism, which decentralizes decision-making and relies on consumer preferences and marketplace competition to determine outcomes, Mr. Trump’s oval-office decision-making deliberately consolidates power in the government and maximizes opportunities to use political dealmaking as a principal force for steering the economy, even to the point of regulating prices.

Record uncertainty

Uncertainty reigns supreme, perhaps because that is what Trump desires. As figure 1 indicates, economic policy uncertainty is at a post-2015 high, surpassing even the uncertainty that emerged in 2020 when COVID shuttered the US economy. And it has only just begun. After all, Mr. Trump has more than three and a half years to go!

What to expect?

At this point, the effects are simply unknowable. Consider the trade war. As indicated recently in The Economist, the scope of the current trade war—its country and product coverage, and the level of tariffs—is unprecedented in US history. But the clues about what may be coming do not look promising. Worrisome reports show April’s consumer confidence has fallen for five consecutive months, reaching its lowest level in 12 years. The reports also show that the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, which has fallen steadily since January, is now at the lowest level in 44 years. Unlike employment and production numbers, these are soft indicators that address what people are expecting. When it comes to hard data, the picture is more varied. But April retail sales hardly grew at all after March sales rose markedly, and February sales were revised upward, perhaps reflecting a rush to buy before the tariffs hit. In addition, Perhaps for similar reasons, April industrial production growth turned negative unlike March, which was well above its 2024 level, perhaps distorted by a rush to buy. 

On the negative side of the ledger, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s services economy index for new orders has fallen to the lowest level since April 2023, and the sector’s employment outlook has turned negative. New job openings in March also showed a cooling economy, with the figure approaching September 2024 levels. Meanwhile, single-family housing starts in March fell to an eight-month low. And then there is what the CEOs of three major retailers—Walmart, Target, and Home Depot—are saying: In a recent White House meeting, the three warned that in a matter of weeks, tariff-damaged supply chains would lead to inventory depletion and higher prices. They urged Trump to end the trade war and stop bashing Fed chair Powell.

Is there a recession in the works? As table 1 shows, Wells Fargo’s April 2025 GDP forecast predicts a recession in the second half of this year, while The Wall Street Journal’s forecast panel expects the economy to enter slow growth now and stay below 1-percent until the fourth quarter. For contrast, I report the stronger and yet-to-be-revised Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s February forecast to illustrate how things have changed in a matter of two months.  

How this report is organized

This report has four remaining parts. In part 2, I examine the geographic imprint of economic forces across the 50 states. Here, we see how the states are performing in manufacturing and services and observe which states are most vulnerable to harmful tariff effects and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employment cuts. Part 3 looks closer at Elon Musk’s much-publicized DOGE activities. The section explores the notion that while some analysts view the celebrated chain-saw action as a tragedy, it is possible that DOGE itself is the result of a tragic situation that plagues all democracies. Part 4 uses my Bootlegger-Baptist theory of regulation to explain Trump’s historic tariff actions. It turns out that Trump may be the most significant bootlegger in the story. Part 5 addresses two fundamental questions regarding the ongoing Trump programs: First, can the efforts underway lead the nation to a new golden age? Or is the goal a bridge too far? And second, if not a golden age, can President Trump “Make America Happy Again” (MAHA)? The report ends with a book review.

2. The 50-State Imprint

The 50 states form a set of diverse economies with vast differences in the specialization and division of labor. There are also large differences in how state economies are performing. A comparison of year-over-year employment growth for manufacturing and services gives a reading on recent changes in where people work in the United States. The first two data maps (figure 2 and figure 3) show the most recent BLS employment growth data for manufacturing and services. Notice that just 10 states show positive growth for manufacturing employment, and this is before the impact of the recent trade war. The services data map shows just four states with negative growth. Obviously, the United States has become a services economy where wages are now higher than in the manufacturing economy. Services are also major US exports to the rest of the world.

What about the effects of DOGE, layoffs, and tariffs?

There are lots of moving parts to consider when examining the effects across the 50 states of DOGE and the Trump trade war. For example, already in a slowdown due to high interest rates and rising material costs, the construction industry nationwide is highly vulnerable to employment losses associated with deporting foreign-born workers. Of the nearly 30 million foreign-born workers employed in the United States in 2023, 3.3 million worked in construction—the third largest sector—following 5.5 million in education and health, and 4.7 million in professional and business services. Fewer than a million were employed in agriculture.  

Now let’s consider the potential geographic imprint of the trade war and DOGE efforts to reduce federal employment. States with the largest import and export sectors will be most vulnerable to harmful trade-war effects. The next two maps (figure 4 and figure 5) show the share of state GDP accounted for by imports from—and then exports to—Canada, China, and Mexico, the three countries most heavily affected by trade war tariffs. When imports and exports are considered together, Michigan is the most vulnerable state, with total exposure accounting for 19 percent of state GDP. It is followed by Illinois with 11.2 percent and Montana with 9.6 percent.  

Exposure to federal layoffs

Let’s now consider regional vulnerabilities to federal government employment cuts. Assuming that higher levels of federal employment mean more risk to economic harm from layoffs, the next map (figure 6) reports states’ share of federal employment in 2024. As expected, the DC-Maryland-Virginia region is the most vulnerable.  Unexpectedly, perhaps, Alaska and New Mexico come in second and third, respectively.  

Figure 6. Where federal workers have the largest presence 
Federal civilian workers as % of all nonfarm payroll employees, March 2024 

3. Is Musk’s Brutal DOGE a Tragedy or Caused by One?

Though controversial, to put it mildly, Elon Musk’s chain-saw-like DOGE efforts to eliminate agencies, cut the federal workforce, and root out waste, fraud, and abuse have become so attractive in some quarters that state-level DOGEs are being considered in Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas.  But long before DOGE, there was then Senator Truman’s 1941 Truman Committee, the Reagan administration’s 1981 Grace Commission, and the Clinton administration’s 1993 National Partnership for Reinventing Government. Each of these cost-cutting efforts sought to make government more efficient and effective.

But why periodically go through these brutal ordeals? Is it the governing process itself and the public’s desire to engage in good works that explains why we the people must figuratively get out chain saws and periodically engage in DOGE-like clean-up activities? The problem centers first on a tragedy of the commons, according to which elected officials seek to keep their jobs by never cutting but always spending more each year to make their constituents happy. Meanwhile, debt accumulates. 

Philosopher Garrett Hardin couched the original description of the tragedy was in terms of a shepherd bringing one more sheep to graze on a common pasture, without having to reckon with the cost imposed across other shepherds and the pasture itself. Where there are no property rights, Hardin explained, each shepherd knows that if he cuts back, another shepherd will expand. Thus, the grass seems to wither away (p. 162).

Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit—in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.

Hardin described how human communities develop all kinds of rules, customs, and traditions to avoid the tragedy, but the tendency for ruin is inherent in the situation. In politics, each elected official knows one thing: Get while the getting is good. Added to this is a human desire to do good works, especially when some anonymous party bears the cost. This is what economist Gordon Tullock famously called the “charity of the uncharitable.” When painful cutbacks come, we understandably cry out, “But the programs were doing a lot of good.”

Federal spending on social assistance, which includes welfare, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and veteran benefits—what the Congressional Research Service calls the “human resources” category of spending—rose from 6 percent of GDP in fiscal 1970 to 7 percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 2024. For the same years, total federal debt as a percent of GDP rose from 35 percent in 1970 to 56 percent in 1990 to 120 percent in 2024.

When brutal DOGE actions are found necessary, politicians tend to blame the prior administration, the other political party, or federal employees themselves for creating gross amounts of waste, fraud and abuse. Without noting how so much waste had entered the picture in the first place, in North Carolina’s House of Representatives, Republican Speaker Destin Hall said that “unnecessary government bloat and waste hurt North Carolina taxpayers’ wallets and divert funds that could be used for core functions such as public safety and education.” But in South Carolina’s Senate, Democrat Senator Ed Sutton seemed to know where the bloat originated. He noted that Republicans had controlled the governor’s office and both chambers of the legislature for more than 20 years and that “if there’s any waste in the state, it’s because they put it there.” 

So, is there a solution? Probably not, at least not in a permanent sense. Since the Great Depression, when continuing federal deficits became morally acceptable, we the people can no longer rely on Victorian thrift or temperance to help ration the fiscal commons. Yes, there can be temporary balanced budget stop-gap measures to bind Ulysses to the mast. But these will always be temporary. What can be done with legal paper can be undone with more paper.

Alas, there are no absolutes, just relatively absolute absolutes. This means periodic DOGEs will continue to be a part of American life. But it doesn’t mean the actions must be taken with chain-saw-like glee.

4. Tariff Man Trump and a Bootlegger-Baptist Jamboree

Since resuming office, President Trump has not for one minute parted from his promise to leverage tariffs to ignite a new golden age. At times, he seems to be working continually to stimulate major trading partners into arrangements that make America great again. But anyone attempting to follow the bouncing tariff proposals may get dizzy. It’s easy to wonder what Trump is currently trying to do, or why it seems so hard to make final tariff decisions.

Part of the answer may lie in a strange, yet common, alliance that forms when government puts its thumb on the scale of business matters.

In early February, Trump announced 25 percent tariffs on all goods from Mexico and Canada and a 10 percent added tariff on China. Days later, following outcries, the tariffs were delayed and coverage was modified. In April, in an on-again, off-again effort, a base-line tariff of 10 percent was imposed on all countries, and reciprocal tariffs were imposed on a subset of countries that run exceptionally large trade surpluses with the United States. This triggered a historic financial market sell-off and an avalanche of White House calls from affected nations and businesses. Some may have realized that Trump’s promise of golden age would be preceded by a difficult period of bankruptcies and hardship. The Trump White House responded by extending the tariff start-up 90 days and accelerating negotiations between administration officials and petitioners seeking relief. 

The outcome of all this is yet to be seen, but the “what is good for the goose is good for the gander” approach could spur agreements to bring down tariffs, which could be positive. But there are more questions to consider before drawing that happy conclusion.

Are the tariffs an effort to leverage trade partners to reduce the entry of fentanyl and other illegal drugs? To protect US industries from low-cost foreign competition? To re-industrialize America? To garner revenues that help balance the budget? All this and more?

These things matter, but let’s consider another possibility: that the tariff movement is mainly about Trump as a modern colossus who stands empowered and athwart US entry points. One who, rattling the keys to the world’s largest and most legally protected consumer market, uses tariffs as a lever to change the way the world works. Perhaps tariffs are, in a sense, tribute.

Economic theory can reveal a lot about political behavior. In the case of federal regulations like Trump’s tariff policies, my 1983 Bootlegger-Baptist theory of regulation may do just that. It’s been called on by regulatory scholars to explain features of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) trade deal as well as the Clean Air Act, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) safety standards, interstate trucking regulation, the Pure Food and Drug Act, regulation of genetically modified organisms, gambling legislation, blood donation, the 1990s tobacco settlement and even pending AI regulation.

The theory gets its name from the regulation of the Sunday sale of alcohol in American localities. Bootlegger-Baptist regulation tends to occur when two distinct groups join the cause: bootleggers (who enjoy a day without legal competition) and traditional Baptists (who have argued that consuming alcohol is immoral). Both favor Sunday closing laws, but for decidedly different reasons.

Time and time again, when a regulation is proposed, one group takes some kind of moral high ground. The other, perhaps a (legal) business better positioned to navigate a new regulation than its competitors, laughs all the way to the bank. Politicians meanwhile appeal to moral sympathies with a sincere smile while also taking care of well-heeled bootleggers.

What does this all have to do with tariffs?

Today’s “Baptists” may have too much confidence in a flawed policy, but they make strong and sympathetic moral arguments about reducing drug deaths, improving federal revenues, and generating a more level international playing field—each point richly supported by public interest groups.

The obvious candidates for the “bootlegger” camp are the industries protected by tariffs. Ongoing tariffs reduce their competition and enhance their profits. Other candidates might include wealthy taxpayers who see an alternative form of government revenue. Some bootleggers might even put on Baptist clothing, perhaps sincerely, as they call for higher tariffs—but the profit motive remains. 

Finally, there’s Trump, the politician-broker who, as gatekeeper, gains tribute—call it political currency—from both. The president may believe tariffs are a moral imperative and, as he sees it, may be playing a major Baptist role himself. But he is also the chief enabler of the bootleggers.

To secure his position, he can lean on an invisible network of supporting bootleggers and Baptists.

5. Is Trump's Golden Age a Bridge Too Far, and What About Making America Happy?

In his inaugural speech and address to the joint chambers of Congress, President Trump announced that his administration would bring a “dawn of the golden age of America” and “usher in the greatest and most successful era in the history of our country.”

The rhetoric sounded good and was well received by perhaps half of the attendees, but it will take more than the president—no matter how serious his commitment—to fully deliver on a promise like this.

To get to the golden age, Congress will need to put away its national credit card, cut the federal deficit, and stop enabling more consumption than is produced each year. The federal budget will have to be balanced for the first time since 2001 when Bill Clinton was in office, and the interest cost of the federal debt, now the budget’s second largest item, will have to be whittled down.

Trump has concentrated political power in the White House and once again demonstrated his recognized ability to make deals. Indeed, at least for the next four years, dealmaking may become the operational definition of presidential governing.

Then there are the amazing actions being taken by DOGE. Despite controversy and public relations missteps, its aggressive work is taking place without especially serious pushback from the loyal opposition or other counterforces. In early March, DOGE indicated that it had saved $105 billion, with more to come as the efficiency targets $1 trillion.

Cutting regulations and laying off federal workers matters in the search for a more balanced and sustainable amount of governance, but it will not get us to Trump’s promised land. The federal deficit is just too large.

In fiscal 2025, so far, the deficit has hit $839 billion. The total public debt is now $36 trillion, up from only $14 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2010. Being so far underwater means a golden age may be a bridge too far.

The latest, ever-changing tariffs on Canada, China, Mexico, and other countries could also generate significant revenues as Americans are taxed on their purchases of foreign goods. But because Trump’s favored tariffs cut the flow of goods to US consumers, those revenues will dim the glow of any golden age.

To continue consuming at the same level, the affordable goods we’ve long enjoyed from favored trading partners will have to come from somewhere else. The same is true of the foreign inputs that many American manufacturers need in order to produce competitively priced final products.

Vice President Vance suggests that the problems this might cause can be avoided if manufacturers will simply bring their production here, which is, of course, one of the stated intentions of the Trump tariffs. But major industrial plants don’t get built overnight.

According to the US Chamber of Commerce, finding construction workers and others to staff new plants will be tough, given our extraordinarily tight labor market. Pulling this off with an essentially fully employed economy, while deporting thousands of previously employed workers and promising tax cuts, will require an amazing increase in worker productivity. This is why we will likely have a well-functioning guest-worker program in place whenever the golden age arrives.

Trump will make aspects of the economy better, but we the people should recognize that his economy will be managed from the White House, with little play from the legislative branch. Using uncertainty as a tool to bring concerned parties to the table, he’ll do what he does best: make deals that favor parties who favor him and his protectionist views. Such policies tend to cartelize and further politicize important US industries, to chill competition, and to further empower the White House. We see recurring examples of these policy effects, such as the White House meeting by leading Silicon Valley CEOs, who hope to come together for a heart-to-heart conversation about economic policy.

Here’s the bottom line: For a true golden age to emerge, federal deficits must become a thing of the past, and the American people will have to break the government habit that enables us to consume more than we produce each year. As Treasury Secretary Bessent urges, private production will have to replace government spending.

Can Trump "Make America Happy Again"?

Donald Trump’s successful journey back to the White House was trumpeted by the widely embraced “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) slogan. But after much post-inaugural turmoil, I wonder whether “greatness” is the exact target we should be seeking. Why not “Make America Happy Again?”

Seen constantly for the better part of a decade on the president’s signature red baseball caps—as well as on bumper stickers, other merchandise, and even the sides of barns—MAGA is more than just a slogan. It’s a globally recognized brand.

The words are mnemonic and adaptable. Upon being sworn into office in January, Trump promised that he would stop inflation and “Make America Affordable Again”—a winning political idea if ever there was one. Not only that, but he pledged that steps would be taken to secure the borders and “Make America Safe Again.” Then, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was named health and human services secretary, Trump promised to “Make America Healthy Again.”

Most recently, when imposing new tariffs on nations far and wide and calling it “Liberation Day,” the president said the action would “Make America Wealthy Again.”  Those watching financial markets collapse undoubtedly thought otherwise, and the president partially (and possibly temporarily) backed down.

Given all this, and for other good reasons, maybe this is the time to “Make America Happy Again.” Let’s add MAHA to the mix.

After all, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is what the founding fathers claimed as the nation’s national purpose. To be sure, feeling safe, happy, and prosperous makes it easier. But in some ways, the reverse might also be true, and achieving some degree of happiness might enable people to truly feel safe, healthy, and that their personal resources are adequate.

Put another way, can a nation be great if its population is not happy?

The latest happiness data

And that’s where the rub comes. In the most recent 2025 World Happiness Report, among the 147 nations listed America dropped to 24th, our lowest ranking ever and far below the 11th-place finish in 2012.

And where are people, by their own reckoning, happiest? Following top-ranked Finland are Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, Norway, Israel, Luxembourg, and Mexico.

Specifically, the ranking is based on responses to this question: “Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you, and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”

A quick glance at the top countries suggests what one would expect: Higher income yields greater happiness, though not systematically. Deeper research on the matter indicates that if America entered a golden age, as Trump has promised, happiness would increase for most people. But as two Princeton University researchers have shown, a persistent share of miserable people would not become happier, no matter how much incomes increased. (I think most of us recognize this.)

Of course, there are some deep problems to be resolved if America is to become happy again. “Death of despair”—drug overdose, alcoholism, and suicide—is now the leading cause of death for people in the 1-to-44 age bracket. According to the Trust for America’s Health, “between 2002 and 2022, the combined rate of deaths due to alcohol, drugs, and suicide have increased by 142 percent from 74,003 deaths in 2002 to 207,827 deaths in 2022.” A significant upward acceleration started with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Obviously, happiness is an elusive thing, but it’s still a fundamentally worthy goal for a nation to pursue. Trump seems to believe there is too much despair in America and that security, prosperity and health are important remedies. But in these early months of his new administration, the chessmen are just beginning to be arranged on the playing board, so to speak.

Seemingly every time the pieces are nearly set up, some key Trump player, or Trump himself, turns the board over. Uncertainty is approaching an all-time high and consumer confidence is headed south.

It remains to be seen if the results achieved by Trump will Make America Happy Again.  Ultimately, it’s up to each of us to find our own happiness. Some of what the president proposes could help—as would less economic upheaval.

6. Yandle's Reading Table

Justene Hill Edwards’s Savings and Trust (2024) is a fascinating history of the Freedman’s Bank established in 1865 by Congress to provide a safe place for former enslaved people to deposit their earnings in interest-bearing savings accounts. The story begins with high hope of success. But then for reasons all too common for financial institutions where there is little to no accountability, after years of amazing growth, the bank came crashing down.

Inspired and led by John Alvord, a Yale-educated Congregationalist minister and abolitionist, heavily committed to assisting formerly enslaved people in establishing themselves as free, the bank initially was precluded by charter from lending or investing in securities other than United States bonds and notes. The bank quickly became a roaring success. In a matter of a few years, tens of thousands Black Americans deposited millions of dollars in 31 offices located in towns and cities throughout what had formerly been enslaving territory. The Washington location was just across the street from the US Treasury, on Pennsylvania Avenue. The depositors were mostly Black Americans; the trustees and higher-ranking officials, mostly Whites.

In 1866, the bank held $199,000 in deposits, the equivalent of $5.1 million today. In 1873, deposits peaked at $4,2 million, the equivalent of $109 million today. At the time, the Freedman’s Bank would have been counted as one of America’s most successful financial institutions. Sadly, just one year later the bank’s doors were closed permanently due to malfeasance, fraud, and inside dealing by the bank’s all-White trustees and officers. In effect, the bank trustees began using the Freedman’s Bank as an ATM, and that use violated the bank’s charter and the federal statute that authorized the institution.

 Along the way, some of the nation’s most successful moneymen became associated with the Freedman’s Bank. For example, banker Henry D. Cooke, brother of famed financier Jay Cooke, whose bond-selling expertise had held helped fund the Union army, was a bank trustee. The two Cooke brothers then worked in tandem to use Freedman’s as a money machine to finance construction of the expanding cross-country railroad.

Weak or nonexistent regulatory oversight at the time supported an early episode of crony capitalism that in the cruelest way defrauded formerly enslaved people and led African Americans to distrust banks and other financial institutions from that point forward. This, in turn, has contributed to the large Black-White gap in wealth and banking that continues to this day. 

Edwards tells interesting narratives as she lays out the Freedman’s Bank’s rise and fall.  Initially, for example, one might wonder how the four million formerly enslaved people, just one year after the Civil War, could have any coin or currency to put in a bank. Part of the answer lies, first, in the fact that the bank was organized to accept extremely small deposits. Then, as Edwards explains, more than 190,000 formerly enslaved people had joined the Union army and fought in the war. Eventually, these Black soldiers were paid the same as their White comrades-in-arms. They had hard currency—and no place to put it. Finally, there was the famous “40 acres and a mule” settlement, which was intended but never fully delivered. Plantation land located on the South Carolina-Georgia coast was provided to the formerly enslaved people, but unfortunately, they did not receive deeds or titles. Many of them became yeoman farmers and were able to generate a meager money income.

In another memorable episode, we learn that when Freedman’s Bank was in serious financial trouble, the trustees came up with what they believed was a brilliant way to save the bank: They convinced the famed African-American intellectual and speaker Frederick Douglass to become its president. Unfortunately, Douglass was unable to reverse the bank’s failing fortunes, and he himself became tainted by the malfeasance he had unwittingly become a part of.