Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cirrus who wrote (190433)	4/28/2010 8:56:47 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 361950

;-)

To: cirrus who wrote (190433)	4/28/2010 11:27:29 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361950

Obama Said to Announce Fed Board Nominees Tomorrow (Update1) By Hans Nichols and Scott Lanman April 28 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama plans to announce his choice of Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Janet Yellen tomorrow as vice chairman of the Fed Board of Governors, according to two people familiar with the decision. The president will also name Sarah Bloom Raskin, Maryland’s commissioner of financial regulation, and Peter Diamond, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for the two remaining open seats on the central bank’s seven-person board, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity before the announcement. The trio would lend support to Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke as he keeps interest rates low to ensure a sustained recovery and prepares for a potentially reduced role in bank supervision. Yellen would replace Donald Kohn, who said in March he would step down June 23 after a 40-year Fed career. “This will be a group of doves slanted toward job creation and growth, increasing the likelihood of rates staying low for a long time,” said former Atlanta Fed research director Robert Eisenbeis, now chief monetary economist at Cumberland Advisors Inc. in Vineland, New Jersey. If confirmed by the Senate, the three would give the Fed a full seven-member complement of governors for the first time since April 2006. President George W. Bush tried to fill the slots with three nominees in 2007: Elizabeth Duke was approved in 2008, while Larry Klane and Randall Kroszner were blocked by Senate Democrats. Obama appointed Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo in January 2009. ‘Widely Respected’ “The new nominees, particularly Yellen and Diamond, are widely respected centrists who will help the chairman ensure that reason prevails in FOMC decisions,” said New York University economist Mark Gertler, who co-wrote research with Bernanke. Yellen, 63, would gain a more prominent role in Fed policy. The move would give her a permanent vote on monetary policy, instead of having a vote one year out of every three as a regional Fed chief. All governors have a vote on rate decisions. In an April 15 speech, Yellen said she’s increasingly certain the U.S. economy is “on the right track,” and that officials will “at some point” need to lift borrowing costs. Still, “it’s important not to lose sight of just how fragile this recovery is,” she said. Yellen’s Career Yellen spent most of her career teaching economics and researching labor markets, joining the University of California at Berkeley in 1980. She and her husband, George Akerlof, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, have written more than a dozen papers that included studies on unemployment, wages, street gangs and out-of-wedlock births. In 1994, then-President Bill Clinton appointed Yellen to be a Fed governor in Washington, serving until 1997, when he moved her to the White House to chair the Council of Economic Advisers. She left the position in 1999 to return to Berkeley. Yellen rejoined the Fed in 2004 as president of its San Francisco district bank, which represents the largest region by area and economic output. She has always voted with the majority of policy makers on interest-rate decisions. Raskin, a 49-year-old attorney, was appointed in August 2007 as Maryland’s top banking regulator. She was previously managing director of Promontory Financial Group, a consulting firm, and worked at the New York Fed and as a counsel for the Senate Banking Committee. She graduated from Harvard Law School in 1986. Her husband, Jamie Raskin, is a law professor and a Democratic Maryland state senator. Financial Overhaul Senate lawmakers are preparing to debate an overhaul of financial legislation that currently includes provisions to strip the Fed of oversight of about 5,000 banks across the U.S. and focus its role on supervising about 36 large firms with assets of more than $50 billion. Tarullo is leading an internal revamping of Fed supervision. Diamond, a specialist in taxation and behavioral economics who turns 70 tomorrow, has written widely on overhauling entitlement programs. His 2003 book “Saving Social Security” was co-written with Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget. He joined MIT’s faculty in 1966. The timing of the announcement fits Yellen’s schedule: She was in Washington attending the Federal Open Market Committee’s meeting today and yesterday. The central bank’s policy panel today restated its intention to keep the benchmark interest rate near zero for an “extended period.” While Yellen doesn’t have an FOMC vote this year, all 12 regional-bank presidents participate at each meeting. To contact the reporters on this story: Hans Nichols in Washington at hnichols2@bloomberg.net; Scott Lanman in Washington at slanman@bloomberg.net Last Updated: April 28, 2010 18:16 EDT