Does Janet Yellen have what it takes to be the next Fed Chairman?
Reporters at the Washington Post ask if pose the question in this excellent, detailed portrait.
In interviews with more than a dozen people who have worked closely with Yellen, the portrait that emerges is of a careful and deliberate thinker who has been mostly right in her assessments over the tumultuous past six years of crisis, recession and grinding recovery. She has been a strong intellectual force within the Fed, a tough taskmaster for staff and single-minded in her desire to push down joblessness. She has been less inclined to wring her hands over the risks that the Fed’s easy money policies could create new bubbles or stoke inflation.
On Friday, a CNBC reporter cited ‘well-informed’ White House sources saying that Larry Summers has a 2-in-3 chance of getting the job. The profile shares some interesting tidbits that suggest why Yellen is on the outside.
Where Bernanke comes to the Fed’s policy committee eight times a year and speaks extemporaneously from a couple of bullet points, Yellen drafts scripts of exactly what she will say, people who have been in the room said, and reads them word for word.
I’m not sure that’s the best quality to have from someone who will be grilled at press conferences and twice a year at Humphrey Hawkins.
Next, the report says she has feuded with fellow FOMC member Daniel Tarullo who was an Obama campaign adviser and remains close with colleagues in the White House.
Yellen has had an often tense relationship with Daniel Tarullo, the Fed governor who has primary responsibility over bank regulation. Their differences are not so much about policy –both have tended to favor aggressive bank regulation and aggressive low interest rates –but instead are personal and stylistic. “They both have in their own way big egos and big personalities,” said one official who has worked with both.
Add it all up and Yellen is looking more and more like a longshot
