PHILADELPHIA – Kevin Warsh’s nomination to succeed Jerome Powell as U.S. Federal Reserve chair has triggered a predictable frenzy of speculation centered on a single, narrow question: How hard will he push for interest-rate cuts? While such conjecture may be entertaining, it misses the forest for the trees. To focus solely on rate cuts is to misunderstand the Fed’s situation and the scale of the challenge awaiting its next leader. Warsh inherits an institution that, by any historical measure, is deeply fractured internally and lacks credibility externally. One need not look far for evidence. The minutes of the most recent policy meeting read like a thesaurus, with a long list of qualifiers – “a few,” “some,” “several,” “a number,” “many,” and “the vast majority” – signaling an unusually wide dispersion of views within the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee. This internal friction reflects a complex economic landscape, in which both components of the Fed’s “dual mandate” – price stability and maximum employment – are under pressure,