Washington Whispers

A Fight for Bernanke's Job

By Paul Bedard

August 5, 2009 RSS Feed Print

By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

Hang in there, Ben Bernanke. Fans of your work as a first-term Federal Reserve chief are going to bat with their White House friends to quash rumors that President Obama is thinking about naming economic aide Larry Summers or Fed official Janet Yellen as your replacement. "They would be fools to ditch Bernanke," an influential financial industry exec tells Whispers. The buzz heightened this month when Big Ben broke protocol by staging a TV town hall on his economic recovery tricks. Some saw it as campaigning. But one banking boss says, "He understands the need to communicate."

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although far better than Greenspan, is a Republican who believes in holding rates too low too long. This and high-end tax cuts are largely responsible for the boom/busts in stocks and houses. We could have done far better without the "booms" which give rise to the busts.

Replacing Bernanke would shock the markets, but, hey, they're already shocked.

Ultimately, I'll bet Geithner makes this call in Obama's ear. I don't know if he is a Bernanke fan or not.

Muser of NM 10:24PM August 05, 2009

It was Bernanke, following in Greenspan's footsteps, who got us into this mess, with a lot of help from W. of course. Their job is to control the money supply for the good of the country. What they did was act as Wall Street boosters. That pleased a lot of investors for a while, but we are paying the price now. And we will continue paying it until the Chinese pull the plug on their loans to us, and mere financial discomfort will be replaced by real panic.

J. Fox of PA 9:45PM August 05, 2009

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