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Fed Chief "In Good Standing"
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A senior White House official tells Richard Wolffe that Ben Bernanke's job appears safe despite Wall Street and Washington betting Larry Summers will replace him in January.
The rumors started early. Ridiculously early, well before President Obama’s inauguration. Larry Summers, Obama’s chief economic adviser, was the leading candidate to replace Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke when his term ends this coming January. It said so in The Wall Street Journal on November 24. U.S. News and World Report followed a month later with something more affirmative: Summers wasn’t just a candidate, said their source, he was going to get the job. Speculation continued in The Washington Post and New York Daily News, and has picked up recently as Bernanke’s term winds down.
“Bernanke is in good standing with the president. Those who are trying to stir the pot are going to find that they were wrong.”
So what is really going on?
One senior White House official—someone with a higher ranking than a “source” or an “insider”—says this: “Bernanke is in good standing with the president. Those who are trying to stir the pot are going to find that they were wrong.”
Of course, that does not preclude Summers himself—or someone close to him—from stirring the pot, or someone else advancing their ambitions by engaging in speculation about the Fed job. It just makes such pot-stirring unlikely to succeed. Bernanke seems a safe bet to stay.
Other White House officials—with lower rankings, but still several thousand feet above an insider quoting rumors in the financial world—readily concede that Summers can be prickly and competitive with those around him inside the White House and the federal government.
But those same officials say that Summers is making a superhuman effort to soften his infamous prickle and tone down the everyday debates about arcane financial regulations. By all accounts, his personal skills—while still lacking compared to, say, his boss in the Oval Office—are far superior to what they were when he ran Treasury in the Clinton era.
What hasn’t changed is Summers’ desire to win an argument or place his formidable intellect on full display. But in that sense, he is just one member of a mini team of rivals: including his former protégé Tim Geithner at Treasury, Sheila Bair at the FDIC, Christina Romer in the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and one Ben Bernanke. Some of those relationships sound like old married couples; some are more like old divorced couples.
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PacificGatePost
If Obama doesn't get a handle on Goldman and its minions, this will continue to be just another administration in the hands of Goldman Sachs. ... What an inside track. Goldman has an uncommon grasp of the joystick.
Here is its letter of appreciation, ----
http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2009/07/goldman-sachs-thank-you-mr-p resident.html
..... And Obama's "favorable" numbers will resemble Bush's.
TJColatrella
Obama sold and squandered his legacy to Goldman Sachs...it's almost like something from Greek Mythology...he'll live to regret it...
hockeydog
Yep! And believe it or not, this Goldman Sach's bucket of corruption is more of the driving force behind Obama's recent decline in popularity than any health care drivel.
We Americans are simply sick and tired of the arrogance and avarice of Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, and the other big investment houses stacking the game in their favor.
Americans may be dumb, but we ain't really stupid, despite using words like ain't!
Genni2002
Summer's "formidable intellect", you say? Think this remains to be seen... With current crap crop of Haarvard and their ilk graduates, would rather a C- student from the Podunk School of Finance (any city, USA) be running the show than these GS lap dogs any day. They probably would actually really know a lot more vs. talking a good game of poker, too.
TJColatrella
Bernanke is a tool and puppet, errand boy for the international fascist banking cabal of the Bilderberg Group, which is why he will stay as long as he serves his true masters..!
Simple as that...
ThinkAgain
Well the CEO's of all the banks we bailed out still have their jobs so I guess Bernanke should keep his. We seem to think the same idiots who caused this (and/or allowed it to happen) are the only idiots who can get us out of it.
hockeydog
It just occurred to me, that nobody on any of these posts ever defends the Goldman Sachs boys and their shenanigans.
Here we have a handful of posts, while the Obama Haters article has over 250 and counting. I don't know what this all means, but it may have something to do with a sense of abject impotence of the American public to do anything about this inherent corruption.
It may also have to do with the related need to blow off some steam, as a result of this collective impotence and frustration.
The steam blows easier from both sides of the aisle when we can focus on a President, rather than on shadowy investment bankers.
Genni2002
Thanks, hockeydog, for articulating it so well. I was also wondering why the complete apathy. I don't know what it all means, but think it means that things are going to limp along like they have been hoping to get back to 'normal' - whatever that means?
mcmchugh99
Somehow, I think that it will be a mistake for Obama to keep a Republican in that job, following the advice of Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal.
This continued policy of trying to appease the Republicans will not do him the slightest bit of good, no more than it did Bill Clinton. Democrats were afraid to impeach Bush Junior, but the Republicans will go after Obama like that as soon as they can.
They know this is a reform era of the type that comes around once in a generation, and they are using every trick in the book to try to block change. And having a free market Republican at the Federal Reserve is going to help them a lot more than it will the Democrats.
mcmchugh99
And I REALLY don't think it's a good idea for Obama to take any advice from Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal, the very people who are doing everything possible to destroy his presidency and block every reform he wants to pass.
When you start doing what your worst enemies want, you are already finished. In any case, these are the very people who were demanding unregulated free market capitalism for 30 years--the very people who brought us this Depression. Give me one reason why.we should continue to follow their advice?
melpol
Surgeons that bring back to life dying patients are celebrated. It is no different when a trouble shooter like Bernanke brings back an economy to life that was almost dead. He is a national hero and should be treated as such. A parade in his honor is appropriate. Those that bad mouth him refuse to accept his worth. They would rather the nation went broke than acknowledge a financial genius.
mcmchugh99
Okay, so Obama fooled us in the election. He turned out to be a DLC Democrat--another Bill Clinton.
We won't get fooled again.
Thank you.
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