Janet Yellen to head the US Federal Reserve
Barack Obama has nominated Janet Yellen to replace Ben Bernanke as chair of the US Federal Reserve.
President Barack Obama has nominated Janet Yellen as chair of the US Federal Reserve, the most powerful central banker in the world. Yellen, 67, the first woman to take the job, will replace Ben Bernanke in January and serve for four years. The current vice-chair of the central bank has spent two decades as a key figure at the Fed.
What the commentators said
"You could hardly find a safer pair of hands," said Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on Telegraph.co.uk. Her experience stretches back to the Asian crisis, while she got the big calls right in recent years. She pushed for interest rate rises in 1996 to head off inflation and wean the economy off cheap credit. Overruled then, she was "quick to sense the danger" to the banking system from the subprime implosion. She later sided with inflation sceptics and backed quantitative easing, which also seems to have been a good call, said Evans-Pritchard. Core inflation in America is close to a 50-year low.
Yellen's approach is a little more doveish than Bernanke's, noted Capital Economics, so the upshot is that there is now a marginally greater chance that the Fed will fail to tighten monetary policy enough as the recovery gathers momentum, allowing inflation off the leash. For now, however, what she does or doesn't do "seems somewhat academic", said Jeremy Warner on Telegraph.co.uk. If the US government defaults there will almost certainly be a global recession regardless of the Fed's actions.
Subscribe to MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Sign up to Money Morning
Our team, led by award winning editors, is dedicated to delivering you the top news, analysis, and guides to help you manage your money, grow your investments and build wealth.
-
Inflation forecast: where are prices heading next?
Updated inflation forecasts were published alongside Rachel Reeves’s Autumn Budget on 30 October. How quickly will prices rise over the next few years?
By Katie Williams Published
-
Ryanair profits dive as passengers hold out for lower fares – should you invest in airline stocks?
Europe’s largest low-cost airline said on Monday that net profits had fallen by 19% to €1.79 billion for the six months to the end of September
By Chris Newlands Published