Zero Hedge | March 9, 2023
After it emerged that the recently appointed Chicago Fed president Austan Goolsbee – prominent Democratic politician and Obama advisor – got the job thanks to the recommendation of a firm which employs his wife, casting into doubt the objectivity not only of the selection process but of Goolsbee’s qualifications and thereby destroying any chance Goolsbee had of failing up even more and taking the Fed vice chair seat recently vacated by Lael Brainard, the list of potential candidates shrank to just a few potential names.
Well, as of this evening, the number of possible Lael Brainard replacements has shrank to just one, and according to Bloomberg the frontrunner in the White House search for the new Fed vice chair is Northwestern University Professor Janice Eberly.
Citing “people familiar”, Bloomberg reports that Eberly – who served as chief economist at the Treasury Department under Barack Obama – has emerged quickly as a candidate in the weeks since Brainard was picked as President Joe Biden’s top economic aide. As part of her vetting process, Eberly met for an interview with Jeff Zients, Biden’s chief of staff, as well as with Brainard and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, a former Fed chair. A final decision has yet to be made made.
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Chicken swinger perchance ?