Bush to Name Bernanke As New Fed Chairman [View All]

[Jon8503]

A WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE NEWS ROUNDUP
October 24, 2005 12:00 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush plans to name Ben Bernanke, the current chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers, to succeed Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Mr. Greenspan has held the post since 1987. The announcement of his replacement is expected at 1 p.m.


The White House hadn't indicated previously when the announcement would come, but Mr. Greenspan has made clear he plans to leave office when his term is up at the end of January. Naming a successor to Mr. Greenspan now gives the Senate time to hold confirmation hearings and act on the nomination before January. For months, the three candidates cited most frequently had been Mr. Bernanke, along with economists Martin Feldstein of Harvard University, and Glenn Hubbard of Columbia University.

Mr. Bernanke served three years as a Fed governor before joining the administration in June. Before that, he taught economics at Princeton University. Mr. Feldstein, who has been on Harvard's faculty since 1969, was chairman of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers from 1982 to 1984 and an adviser to the 2000 Bush campaign. Mr. Hubbard, who served two years as chairman of Mr. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, has been at Columbia since 1994 and currently is dean of its business school.

WSJ's Gerald Seib comments on Bush's selecting Ben Bernanke to replace Alan Greenspan as Fed Chairman.Choosing a successor to Mr. Greenspan, 79 years old, is one of Mr. Bush's most important economic decisions. The Fed chairman wields unequaled influence over U.S. and world economic growth. The Fed's independence also frees its chairman to stake out policy positions different from those of the president or Congress, and Mr. Greenspan has used that independence to acquire considerable sway on nonmonetary policy issues such as the budget, taxes and Social Security.

Excerpt Taken from Todays Wall Street Journal Subscription Issue.