Posts Tagged The Federal Reserve

Again, The Economist has weighed in…
Professional economists have applauded Mr Bernanke’s actions, but the public has not. The Fed’s approval rating stands at just 30%, lower than any other federal agency and down from 53% in 2003, according to Gallup. Partly this is because the economy has faced a devastating recession that the Fed was meant to prevent. But it also reflects discomfort with the Fed’s meddling in private markets.

Central bankers expect to be unpopular, but the Fed is uniquely vulnerable now. A bill in Congress would subject its most sensitive decisions to legislators’ scrutiny, while the administration has proposed expanding its regulatory oversight to contain future crises. This has thrust Mr Bernanke into the political arena: he appears to be at odds with Tim Geithner, the treasury secretary and a former colleague at the Fed, over his proposal to strip the central bank of its consumer-protection duties. Just one senator voted against his confirmation in 2006; between 10 and 25 from both parties may this time, though that will not deny him confirmation.

Mr Obama could have succumbed to partisan priorities as well. The Fed chairman wields enormous influence over all economic policy, not just monetary policy, and a Democrat has not held the job since 1987. Mr Obama had many qualified candidates, from Larry Summers, his adviser and a former treasury secretary, to Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Fed. The president went with Mr Bernanke to keep together two principal architects of the response to the crisis—the other is Mr Geithner—and to eliminate market suspicions that he wanted a pliable loyalist in the job. In doing so, he has helped assure Mr Bernanke’s legacy of making the chairmanship less political and more technical. You might even say academic.
http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14327657

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14303777

Take a deep breath Ben

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International Investment Advisors

We just want to alert our clients that this is excellent news and will be an important assurance for global financial markets. There are some populist forces in the United States that were gaining momentum against the Bernanke and the ranks of centrist economists around him. This is good news for investors and no small development.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/business/25bernanke.html?_r=1&hp

Proven Under Pressure

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