Is that green smoke over the Eccles Building? We have a new Fed Chair nominee!

President Donald Trump named Kevin Warsh , once the youngest Fed governor, now a think tanker and academic lecturer, to lead the Federal Reserve. In today’s newsletter, we’ll have everything you need to know about this nominee, plus a quiz to test your econ knowledge against other Marketplace fans. 

First though, let’s turn to Minneapolis. Thousands protested against the White House’s aggressive, deadly immigration crackdown here for the second Friday in a row. Hundreds of small businesses also shut their doors in an “economic blackout” last week, but sacrificing foot traffic on a second Friday is tougher — and the push for a general strike has gone nationwide.

Fany Gerson, owner of Fan Fan Doughnuts and Mijo in New York City, proposed three options to her staff this week: “We can either stay open business as usual … or we could stay open and give a portion or the entire sales to an organization that we all agree upon, or we close.”

Gerson said the vast majority of her employees are immigrants. Everyone chose to shut down, she said.

“I don't know if we can really afford to, but this is just a bigger — and what was most important to us, even though we don't know exactly like the financial hit,” Gerson said.

As federal lawmakers continue to debate funding for the Department of Homeland Security, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, activists and grassroots organizations around the country have called for what they’re calling a “national shutdown” Friday, Jan. 30, to take a stand against ICE action in Minnesota and elsewhere.

They’re calling for no school, no work, no shopping. It’s inspired by the general strike last Friday in Minnesota where hundreds of businesses closed their doors and thousands of people took to the streets in protest.

Nationwide, small business owners who support the shutdown in principle weighed the difficult decision of whether to close or stay open.

In Wisconsin, TJ Semanchin, owner of Wonderstate Coffee, said it’s important to him to keep showing solidarity with the movement, even if there’s a financial cost. 

“Between lost sales and paying our staff, you know, it's probably less than $10,000 but it's in that ballpark,” he said.

But not everyone can do that.

Caroline Glover, co-owner of Annette, a restaurant, and Traveling Mercies, a bar, in Aurora, Colorado, said this is a tough time of year. 

“For us, closing down on a Friday night at the end of the slowest month of the year just was not a business decision that we could do, you know we … couldn’t support our staff financially if we did that,” she said.

Warsh is a bit more hawkish than others Trump considered to lead the central bank, which is a bit surprising given the President’s relentless, unprecedented pressure for lower interest rates. But Warsh has been critical of the Fed under current Chair Jerome Powell, recently calling for “regime change.” 

The Senate will have to confirm Warsh. Powell’s term ends in May, though he can stay on as a Fed governor until 2028. 

I didn’t take economics in high school, I don’t think it was even offered, but that was a long time ago. Today, more states are requiring a basic crash-course in capitalism, and it’s giving students a healthy skepticism about the whole system.

How does your econ knowledge stack up? Find out by taking our news quiz, which has a special focus this week on economics 101. I missed one question, but I’ll let you guess which one.