After President Barack Obama all but fired U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in a recent television interview, everyone’s been trying to figure out who the president will name as the next Fed chief next year.
Of course, Money Morning has long been critical of the Bernanke-led Fed, and in particular its easy money policies of recent years — namely its zero interest rates and waves of quantitative easing (QE) that have added trillions to the Fed’s balance sheet.
That debt, the asset bubbles it has created and the Fed’s too-cozy relationship with the Big Banks, has prompted the experts at Money Morning to question whether the Federal Reserve should exist at all.
“I believe the Fed is outmoded and should be disbanded,” said Money Morning Chief Investment Strategist Keith Fitz-Gerald, who recently wrote about whether the Fed is necessary. “It’s a financial body that has outlived its usefulness and is merely causing us to lurch from crisis to crisis. Barring any change in the notion of what it’s there to do, get rid of it.”
Still, for the time being, we’re stuck with the Federal Reserve. And the next Fed chief – whoever President Obama appoints in January — will be setting monetary policy for at least the next four years.
One thing’s for sure: Anyone who dislikes how Bernanke has run the central bank probably won’t be happy with the next Fed chairman either.
As confounding as it seems now, it was not the liberal Democrat President Obama, but Republican President George W. Bush who first appointed Bernanke to head the Federal Reserve in 2006.
That Obama re-appointed Bernanke in 2010 made sense, as they share a similar Keynesian economic philosophy. That is, they both think the best way to help a weak economy is through massive government spending no matter how much debt piles up.
So while Bernanke may be on his way out the door, you can bet that whoever President Obama chooses as the next Fed chief will be just as much of a Keynesian as Bernanke has been – and maybe more so.