The New Chairman/Chairwoman of the Federal Reserve Bank is...???

[Kushinator]

Both potential candidates (is that the right term?) have their strengths and weaknesses. Wall Street wants Yellen, and Academia wants Summers. Who would be your choice? For other, please list.

 

[CanadaJohn]

Both potential candidates (is that the right term?) have their strengths and weaknesses. Wall Street wants Yellen, and Academia wants Summers. Who would be your choice? For other, please list.

Summers may be brilliant, but he's an a-one a-hole and to see his mug and hear his voice in the news on a regular basis would be almost as painful as seeing and listening to Obama.

For no other reason than that, let the woman reign - and I think she said she wants to be called Chairman, in the traditional sense, and that sounds level headed to me.

 

[head of joaquin]

Summers advocated for the end of Glass-Steagall; Yellen supported Glass-Steagall.

That is dispositive for me, since terminating GS was a significant cause of the Bush Meltdown. Yellen also seems to focus more on how policy affects unemployment than Summers, who seems a bit out of touch.

 

[Kushinator]

Summers advocated for the end of Glass-Steagall; Yellen supported Glass-Steagall.

That is dispositive for me, since terminating GS was a significant cause of the Bush Meltdown. Yellen also seems to focus more on how policy affects unemployment than Summers, who seems a bit out of touch.

Gramm Leach Bliley takes far too much flack for the financial crisis. Adjustable rate mortgages were the result of the Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982. Similarly, structured investment vehicles (SIV) were created in the late 1980's. Depository institutions were even allowed to have investment banking operations in the 1990's.

Private lending securitization existed way before GLB.

 

[head of joaquin]

Gramm Leach Bliley takes far too much flack for the financial crisis. Adjustable rate mortgages were the result of the Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982. Similarly, structured investment vehicles (SIV) were created in the late 1980's. Depository institutions were even allowed to have investment banking operations in the 1990's.

Private lending securitization existed way before GLB.

The problem with GLBA is that is allowed for the creation of an inherent conflict of interest in the same bank. It's not a coincidence that the Savings and Loans industry, which was excempt from GS, underwent its own collapse in the 80s. The conflict encouraged banks to leverage deals on the private banking side to maximize profits -- fine in itself -- but it threatened the commercial side of the ledger.

But I agree this might have only resulted in a medium size crisis were it not for the deregulation of CDSs, which was the vector for poisoning the entire system, and it was of course Senator Gramm (of Gramm Leach Bliley) who arranged for their exemption. The introduction of CDSs spread the toxin throughout the system, so that a rise in foreclosures, which could typically be handled by FDIC through buyouts by solvent banks with better inventory, became impossible since the securities had introduced the risk to virtually every financial institution.

 

[gavinfielder]

I haven't researched this thoroughly, nor will I (it's not like I'm voting for it. ****ers), but the opinions I've been reading from the MMT camp seem reasonable: Yellen is the only candidate with real experience in central banking, while Summers is clearly a clueless follower of neoliberal mythology in addition to being coldfooted and undoubtedly prone to too little too late. Summers seems very likely to do absolutely nothing to help the economy; we need a changing of the guard, though, and Yellen's probably the best choice.

I haven't heard that wall street wants Yellen. I wonder why.

 

[austrianecon]

Depends on what people want.. Yellen is a dove. Summers is spineless.. so I choose other.