1. He does not understand that “unwinding” the Fed’s balance sheet is nothing to be concerned about. As I have written previously, this will occur naturally as banks pay-off their loans that the Fed extended in the crisis, and as banks repurchase the assets they sold to the Fed to obtain reserves. However, Bernanke still seems to believe in the discredited “deposit multiplier” and believes the Fed will have to take action to drain reserves (“reverse the quantitative easing”) to prevent excess reserves from fueling inflation. This is nonsense. Banks do not lend reserves and existence of excess reserves does not make them more willing to lend. The Fed does not need to do anything more than to accommodate banks—no concerted action is required. Still, even in the worst case, the Fed will not be able to create a huge mess. Since it operates with an overnight interest rate target, if it tries to remove reserves that the banks want to hold, it will drive rates above the target—so will have to add back the reserves. This could create some uncertainty but it is not likely to generate any crisis.
2. Bernanke might appear to be a “born again” regulator, but that is highly doubtful. The Fed will never take regulation seriously because it is captured by Wall Street. So the important thing is to ensure that the Fed does not become the “super duper systemic regulator” that many are now proposing. This job needs to go to the FDIC, which has in the past actually done some regulating.
3. A win for Bernanke might energize the forces that want to keep Timmy Geithner and Larry Summers in their jobs. In truth, it is far more important to remove Timmy and Larry (and to remove Robert Rubin from his position as advisor to the administration). I have not seen any evidence that Bernanke has been corrupted by Wall Street. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Geithner and Summers—where apparent conflicts of interest abound, and questionable decisions have been taken that favor Wall Street institutions. And the Treasury is far more important than the Fed. If we are going to reregulate financial institutions (as Obama now seems inclined to do), we have got to have real regulators at the Treasury. Neither Timmy nor Larry has ever indicated any interest in “interfering” with Wall Street. Indeed, Geithner seems to have been leaking to the press his dissatisfaction with Obama’s recent proposals. Perhaps he is already angling for his Wall Street rewards—seeking a well-compensated position in a financial institution should he be fired.
To be clear, I would prefer to replace Bernanke with someone who actually understands monetary policy and who advocates regulation and supervision of financial institutions. Unfortunately, that looks unlikely. We need to turn our attention to Rubin, Geithner and Summers. Obama does not need any action by Congress to rid himself of these anchors that are dragging down his administration, as well as the Democratic party.
6 responses to “Will Bernanke Be Reappointed? Does It Matter?”