Obama should pick Stanley Fisher for Fed Chairman

[pnwmom]

31. How can you assert that he would be a far better candidate than the other contenders

without saying anything about their qualifications?


Fisher is a crony of Summers, who supports him strongly, so it's not surprising his name should start popping up now that Summers has resigned. And his magic trick with Israel's economy -- a massive devaluation of their currency -- worked fine for a small economy but would wreak havoc in the world if the US tried it. I do not see his experience has provided any better preparation for the job than Janet Yellin's, who's already at the Federal Reserve in the number 2 spot.

But of course the men in the old boys club are calling for the President to appoint someone from outside. That's what the men usually do when a woman is the natural successor within a banking organization.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/15/stan-fischer-saved-israels-economy-can-he-save-americas/

He was recruited by Lawrence H. Summers, who had gotten his first academic job at MIT on Fischer’s recommendation, and who was at that point undersecretary of Treasury for international affairs. “We in the Treasury thought it was obvious that the strongest possible person for that position was Stan Fischer, and urged his appointment on the IMF,” Summers said.

SNIP

Being governor of a small country’s central bank during a worldwide financial crisis isn’t anyone’s idea of a fun job. Israel, like many other nations, was hit with the consequences of screw-ups made on Wall Street and in Washington. U.S. policymakers could have, in theory, prevented the crisis; at his post in Israel, Fischer had no such ability. But Fischer had a weapon of his own: the shekel. Central banks generally have a lot of control over how much their countries’ currencies are worth relative to others. And reducing a currency’s value increases a country’s exports, which can often lead to economic growth.

Big central banks tend to be cautious about using that lever. If Bernanke halved the value of the dollar relative to, say, the Chinese yuan, that would dramatically increase U.S. exports and probably economic growth, too, but it would also wreak havoc with the global financial system. Every dollar-denominated asset in the world, including all manner of bonds, would plummet in value.

It’s less risky for small countries. There aren’t massive piles of shekels lying around in other countries the way there are with dollars and euros, and Fischer took advantage of that fact. On May 30, 2008, a dollar was worth about 3.2 shekels. On March 6, 2009, it was worth 4.2 shekels. In less than a year, Fischer had reduced the value of the shekel by about 25 percent — a massive devaluation.

SNIP