By: Mr.Fog on Lunedì 24 Ottobre 2005 21:29
Morale: Il buon generale non deve mai svelare completamente i suoi intenti...ne ai suoi luogotenenti ne tantomeno alla truppa.
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Da stratfor.com
U.S.: Greenspan's Successor
October 24, 2005 16 58 GMT
Summary
U.S. President George W. Bush reportedly has selected Ben Bernanke as his nominee to succeed Alan Greenspan as the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Though he is an experienced professional, Bernanke is not necessarily assured a successful run as Fed governor.
Analysis
U.S. President George W. Bush has selected Ben Bernanke as his nominee to succeed Alan Greenspan as the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, an anonymous administration official has told The Associated Press. While no one doubts Bernanke's professionalism or expertise -- and only a jaundiced few doubt his ability to operate in a position independent of the office appointing him -- this does not necessarily a successful Fed governor make.
Fed governors have to balance the desire of the U.S. economy for growth with the necessity of keeping inflation under control. If inflation can be kept in the box, interest rates can be kept low and growth will follow naturally.
Greenspan's secret, however, was not his commitment to taming inflation, but his flexibility in fighting it. He did not push reflexively for higher rates whenever inflation bumped upward. Instead, Greenspan took the long view and demonstrated his willingness to tolerate higher-than-comfortable inflation in the short run if he believed -- and his precognitive powers have proven unnervingly uncanny -- they would be tamer in the not-too-distant future.
Obviously, this requires a unique individual who sees monetary policy as more art than science.
It is highly unlikely Bernanke represents that person. Though in many ways cut from the same cloth as Greenspan, Bernanke differs in one critical respect: He supports a notion called inflation targeting, in which the Federal Reserve would publicly declare the specific inflation rate or range of inflation rates it deems tolerable. If inflation is higher than the range, then interest rates should rise and restrict access to money to cool the economy. If inflation is lower, then interest rates should fall in order to stimulate activity.
In Bernanke's view, such openness would create trust in the institution of the Fed, as opposed to the institution of which Master of the Universe Alan Greenspan has become the embodiment.
There is one critical -- and perhaps fatal -- flaw in inflation targeting. If everyone knows the Fed's moves before it makes them, if everyone has no need to pay attention to the Fed and can simply watch the Department of Labor's inflation statistics, then financial movements will become jerky month-by-month and week-by-week reactions based on a single narrow -- and often heavily revised -- set of statistics.
The value of the Greenspan approach is that while it produces a bit of a cult of personality, it forces the markets -- however unwillingly -- to take a longer view. That forces the markets to take pesky things like risk into account. Bets are hedged, best-case scenarios are questioned, "irrational exuberance" becomes contained.
In the case of the United States, that long view contains a future in which the largest generation in U.S. history, the baby boomer generation, is about to retire. As that happens, the United States will face a credit crunch and -- if the Fed chairman-nominee has his way -- a system in which policy flexibility is only a dreamy-eyed memory.