History reserves a sad place for next Fed boss

[tocqueville]

By Toni Straka

The nomination of Ben Bernanke, head of US President George W Bush's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), as successor to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has sparked a hot international discussion about the future course of US monetary policy.

The academic world fiercely debates whether Bernanke will be a "hawk" who is not afraid to fight inflationary pressures with higher interest rates or a "dove" who prefers to let the stuttering economy rumble ahead on a cushion of cheap credit. But gyrating capital markets obviously fear the latter.

Ben "Printing Press" Bernanke's reputation is engraved in stone with weary asset managers since he said in a speech in November 2002,"the US government has a technology, called a printing press - or, today, its electronic equivalent - that allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost."

Such a stance certainly pleases Bush who has been running up more debts than any other president in US history and is for this reason actually the biggest enemy to a sound monetary policy in times of rising inflation. Public debt jumped from US$5.8 trillion to more than $8 trillion (that is $8,000,000,000,000) since he took office in 2001, and he is the first president who has never vetoed any costly bill Congress has presented to him.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GJ28Dj01.html

[populistdriven]

1. How long is this guy's term for? Can the next Pres get rid of him?

[tocqueville]

2. 1) 14 years 2) dunno

[TahitiNut]

3. Four years. Yes.

The seven members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. A full term is fourteen years. One term begins every two years, on February 1 of even-numbered years. A member who serves a full term may not be reappointed. A member who completes an unexpired portion of a term may be reappointed. All terms end on their statutory date regardless of the date on which the member is sworn into office.

The Chairman and the Vice Chairman of the Board are named by the President from among the members and are confirmed by the Senate. They serve a term of four years. A member's term on the Board is not affected by his or her status as Chairman or Vice Chairman.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/bios/