2023’s Man of the Year: Time Magazine wants Taylor Swift. Here’s a better candidate

Notwithstanding the lopsided opinions the editors of Time Magazine foist upon readers, the real Person of the Year is actually Man of the Year: the chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell.

One of the criteria Time Magazine uses for its choice is “who most shaped the headlines over the previous 12 months, for better or for worse.” (Emphasis added.) That seems like a narrow perspective from which to filter candidates. Still, per Google Trends, “Taylor Swift” may have been a more popular online search term than “Jerome Powell.”

One wonders who was conducting those Google searches. Perhaps it was adoring girls searching for music or concert tickets. By contrast, Powell is eminently uninteresting to search. Nevertheless, in terms of who actually had the greatest influence on wealthy and struggling families looking to buy cars and houses, or more basic essentials like groceries, he was much more impactful.

Sure, Swift attracts the estrogen-fueled, screechy teenage girls — and indulgent parents — to her family-friendly concerts, which did well this year. Indeed, her Eras concert tour is the highest grossing of all time, perhaps reflecting more performances in more venues to a growing population. But credit where it’s due: She even had a movie of her concerts made, furthering the influence of girl power beyond toxic Barbie.

Swift’s singing talent is noteworthy, but her pure musical abilities fade when compared to accomplished musicians like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Grateful Dead, Nirvana, Pearl Jam...and so many others. On stage, they could actually rock, and improvise, rather than just front a glitzy, polished production with singers shaking their groove things in front of undiscerning fans.

Remember this: TIME's CRITERIA PERSON OF THE YEAR is a person, a group, idea, or object that "for better or for worse... has done the most to influence the events of the year".

Despite Taylor Swift selling out venues in 2023, Jerome Powell would still deserve to be named Man of the Year — for better or worse, starting from the worse, as he stubbornly insisted that inflation is transitory, finally moving to the (potentially) better, now that he’s assumed a more dovish stance after imposing multiple rate hikes to curb inflation.

Quite simply, Powell’s influence far exceeds Swift’s in all facets of human endeavor, except pop culture.

These endeavors impact all Americans in all walks of life: entrepreneurship and capital allocation; banking, with higher rates contributing to some institutions going belly-up; politics, including voodoo Bidenomics; labor unions leveraging inflation stats to strike for higher wages; housing market disruptions as mortgage rates soared; and stock and bond market gyrations, affecting many millions of retirement accounts.

No wonder business leaders and politicians hang on Powell’s every word, trying to read the tea leaves of cryptic Fedspeak. Unless they were banking on continued higher rates, many market participants are probably relieved that Powell’s Fed has assumed a policy easing stance, albeit as the economy slows.

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